St John Ambulance Western Australia is a non-profit, charitable organisation providing first aid services and training, urgent care, patient transport, ambulance and other medical services in Western Australia.
Client
St Johns WA
Services
Yammer
Industry
Healthcare
Organisation type
Large (2,000+ employees)
Country
Australia
Context
St John WA was already working with Engage Squared to plan the roll out of Yammer. Strategically, the decision was made to pivot and collapse a planned 10-week program into launching Yammer in just 7 days.
The challenge
Prior to this project, St John WA had very limited communication and collaboration tools available to its workforce. Staff and volunteers were reliant on push communications delivered via phone, email, the website and their SharePoint intranet. To communicate with their geographically dispersed workforce, bulk emails would be sent, and team chats and updates were often sent within private Facebook groups, commonly set-up and run by volunteers.
According to Christina Blake – the decision to launch Yammer aligned well with their cultural priorities, including listening to staff and volunteers and enabling greater leadership visibility. Overall, St John WA want to ensure front line staff learning is based on facts, customer case examples and continuous learning. A perfect fit for Yammer.
Launching Yammer and the end result
In the first few weeks, users on the new Yammer network grew from a handful on the project team to over 2,000. This increase continued over the next 6 weeks with users and engagement on the rise.
Through Yammer, St John WA CEO Michelle Fyfe has been able to send out video updates and key message posts across the organisation on topics covering the flu vaccine, downloading of the COVID- Safe app, updates from the Medical Director for frontline staff, along with updates from the Executive Team. These video updates have proved popular and each are seen by over 650 staff and volunteers.
Operational managers were able to ask for Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) usage queries to made on a Yammer thread to be collated onto a FAQ page. This is a terrific use case for the role Yammer played during the Covid-19, to help keep staff informed, and ensure they and their patients are kept safe.
The results overall for the new Yammer network have been impressive. St John WA had the foresight to activate Swoop Analytics from the outset. Response rates were sitting at 88 percent, well above the global average.
From a security perspective, the project has also enabled to transfer closed private Facebook groups to more inclusive Yammer conversations on an endorsed Microsoft platform.
The 7-day Yammer success for St John WA during Covid-19 has also given leaders and operational managers the ability to share, amplify and endorse posts and gauge sentiment across the organisation. And most importantly it has enabled for first responders to be actively involved in two-way conversations and obtain information rapidly in the uncertain times of the pandemic.
The impact
At a glance:
- 2,000 users within 7 days
- Two way communication for frontline workers
- Clinical note taking time halved due to iPad dictation function
- Short training and communication videos now easily circulated
