Medibank – Connecting more than 80 stores with one community

With more than 80 stores scattered across one of the largest countries on the planet, Medibank’s frontline team members are some of the most connected and engaged in the world.

Medibank Retail’s Viva Engage community, which has recently been renamed Medibank Community, ranked No.2 in the world in SWOOP Analytics’ 2023/24 Viva Engage benchmarking analysis of almost 5,000 regularly active communities based on measures of reciprocity, connections, sentiment, growth, consistent activity and more.

The entire Medibank Viva Engage network also ranked No.2 in the world for medium-size organisations. Medium size organisations are those with between 1,500 and 8,000 active employees, meaning employees who regularly post, reply or react to posts. This measure takes into account every Viva Engage community operating across the organisation’s entire network.

The stand-out Medibank Community connects all 400 frontline team members at Australia’s largest private health insurer, along with another 300 or so Medibank employees and executives who want to feel connected to the frontline of the business.

Primarily, the Medibank Community is used for daily updates across all stores, for recognition of employees’ tenure, celebrating business successes, and for health and wellbeing initiatives like RUOK Day.

These simple uses have been the catalyst to expand the community into so much more.

Andrew Carlson, Community Lead at Medibank, said connecting on Viva Engage allows colleagues to build trust, despite being geographically dispersed across the country, and results in meaningful discussions and outcomes for the business.

Andrew Carlson, Community Lead, Medibank.

“It makes everyone feel like an equal, or a real person,” Andrew said.

“When anyone in the business engages with a retail member, they know who they are, even if they haven’t worked side-by-side before. It opens up conversation, whether it be in-person or in Viva Engage or otherwise.

“Some of the discussions flow out in other channels, because people feel like they’re connected, it means you can have a bit more honesty as well, and they can ask what they need.

“I don’t just look for an engagement score. I want to see if there is a connection and is that really making meaningful discussions and outcomes? That’s what’s happening for us.”

Building a successful Viva Engage community

Michelle Urquhart, Head of Employee Communications, Medibank.

Michelle Urquhart, Head of Employee Communications at Medibank, said the Medibank Retail community, now named Medibank Community, was one of the first communities launched across Medibank’s then-Yammer network. Initially, this community received training, support and coaching to get people comfortable using Yammer, now Viva Engage.

“They did the (Yammer) pilot and at the time we were very intentional about coaching, support and providing guidance on how to get the most out of their Yammer experience,” Michelle said.

“That’s probably paid off now as the culture was set with behaviours from the beginning.”

Andrew explained that recognition in the Medibank Community is key to its success and has led to many more business outcomes.

“It is a really important recognition channel for not just great customer outcomes or great service outcomes but also every day we publish people’s anniversaries which is a really big thing for us so people can get in and congratulate, take photos of people that are celebrating those days,” he said.

“Our 2030 vision is to create the best health and wellbeing for Australia and that includes our people. We love seeing on Viva Engage how the team really put energy behind health and wellbeing initiatives and show what they are each doing in the different retail stores across the country.

“It’s a really cool one when you’ve got more than 80 stores spread all over the country, it gives them a way of feeling like they’re visually all together and sharing their commonalties, even though they can’t see each other in a normal way.”

Connecting leadership with the frontline

Andrew shared the story of walking into a meeting in Melbourne and a senior leader was on the phone to a frontline team member after seeing a Viva Engage post on Medibank Community celebrating the team member’s 20th work anniversary.

“One of the senior leaders in the business was calling a frontline team member to say; ‘Hey, I just saw on Yammer that you’re celebrating 20 years today and I want to say how awesome that is that you’ve been serving our customers for 20 years’,” Andrew said.

“It’s sharing best practice and sharing community, but it means that there’s a better line of sight of acknowledgment for all those other people who want to connect with the frontline.

“They can actually feel they’re part of the frontline to an extent.”

Another benefit is the ability for senior executives to post their visits to stores in the Medibank Community to show they want to be connected with everyone on the frontline.

“It’s also a page where execs can post a photo when they’ve done a store photo because they know they can’t get to all stores in a year but it’s us showing you that we’re part of you,” Andrew said.

“So they want to be part of the community that’s posting as well, which is really helpful.”

Personally, Andrew has consciously taken a step back from posting selfies from each of his store visits. Instead, he encourages people within the store to post on Viva Engage about the visit, and he will comment on the post.

An example of a Viva Engage post Andrew has commented on.

“I try and ask the team to post it and then I’ll comment on it and say how awesome the visit was, rather than me post to say how awesome am I, I visited the store,” Andrew said.

“I’ll still throw one in now and then but let the team discuss what they got out of the visit rather than me tell what I got out of it. I want it to be their environment first and foremost.

“I’m not the daily poster but I’m definitely a daily contributor through comments, likes and tagging people who I want to be part of the conversation.”

Michelle said she never has to nudge Andrew to engage with Viva Engage posts because there are always genuine, authentic conversations happening in the Medibank Community. He has also built Viva Engage into his daily routine and it’s become habitual to check, just like emails and other platforms.

“Viva Engage is a unique platform because it facilitates two-way conversation with employees no matter what their role is or where they are located so it is important that leaders are visible on there and having authentic interactions,” Michelle said.

Breaking down traditional business hierarchies

Andrew said his current favourite Viva Engage community is one where a frontline team member shares podcasts interviewing other employees. Whereas many Viva Engage communities can be top-down communication channels, at Medibank they’re often bottom-up.

“We’ve got a frontline retail team member who has created her own podcast and Viva Engage is the mode to share that with everyone across the organisation,” Andrew said.

“It’s great to see our people regularly tuning in!”

The frontline team member invites guests and speaks with them about their health and wellbeing goals, and their role in the business.

“These are important topics for frontline. It’s just really fun. No one needs permission to do this,” Andrew said.

“Some of the most powerful channels are not always the biggest ones but they’re the ones that create a really good avenue for people to have a voice.

“I think that’s important that it doesn’t have to be the best one or the biggest ones, it’s about the broader community of channels that you put together.”

Thriving communities across Medibank

Medibank boasted two more communities in the top 15 of the most Thriving Communities benchmarked by SWOOP Analytics in 2023/24. Coming in at No.12 from the almost 5,000 active communities analysed is the Medibank All Company community, followed by the Fix It community at No.14.

It’s no fluke the All Company community ranked so highly. Before the launch of every campaign at Medibank, thought goes into how employees can be engaged in the campaign – whether it be an internal or external campaign – and how people can interact on Viva Engage.

“When we do a campaign internally we look at all of our communication channels. Our intranet is our source of truth but one of the ways we often get employees actively involved in our campaigns is by using Viva Engage,” Michelle said.

“We look at our campaign and think of the role of each of our communication channels as well as what do we want our employees to think, feel, see and do with this information. Viva Engage is a great way to engage employees and have some fun.”

Over the past year Medibank has run a “Remarkable Humans” external marketing campaign which was combined with competitions on Viva Engage to get employees involved by sharing what makes you, or a team mate, a remarkable human. 

Next year Medibank is moving buildings and employees have been asked to be creative and come up with suggestions for the names of meeting rooms.

Marketing images from Medibank’s Remarkable Humans campaign.

Employees also use Viva Engage to share insights about what days of significance may mean to them including Wear It Purple Day.

Andrew said when Medibank gets it right, the momentum spills over to other channels like LinkedIn as well.

“A team will share and post themselves on LinkedIn because they’re proud of the company and proud of what they’re doing,” he said.

That momentum trickles into the store environment as well. Andrew said Medibank is currently designing a new store, with part of the design including local content, some of which will be sourced from Viva Engage communities.

“It stitches it together to build engagement, to build connection in the company,” he said.

Fix It community

Medibank’s Fix It Viva Engage community is a way for problems to solved (sometimes) immediately.

People post in the community with their problem and Andrew said more often than not, someone replies with a solution. He said it’s a valuable tool for frontline team members.

“It’s very much for frontline. When they see something that’s not quite right, that’s their way of alerting others,” Andrew said.

“It has great connection from frontline into operational tools. We can fix the system, fix the process.”

Last year, Medibank also launched a What If community, encouraging employees to go beyond solving problems to thinking towards the future as part of a “work. reinvented” launch.

“At the time, we asked our employees to share ‘what if’ ideas that would help us reinvent work as part of our ambition to bring more joy, creativity and health to our days,” Michelle said.

She said the community went “gang busters”.

“We couldn’t keep up with the threads in there. It was amazing to see the different ideas and the different connections happening across the organisation,” Michelle said.

“We’re a year into that journey now and it’s been really exciting to see the momentum build and a lot of that came just from employees sharing ideas with each other.”