World’s largest analysis of Microsoft Yammer finds a shift towards empowering employees’ voices

NEW YORK, Nov 9, 2021 - The world’s largest analysis of Microsoft Yammer has found a growing trend towards employees using the enterprise social network to voice their concerns to management and executives. 

SWOOP Analytics, the world’s leading collaboration analytics company, analyzed more than 4,300 Yammer communities during the transition to hybrid working and found a shift in Yammer usage since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, when company executives used the platform to engage the whole enterprise in a time of crisis. 

In 2021, there has been a substantial growth in wellbeing-related Yammer communities, as opposed to work-only communities and announcements. Employees felt empowered to address societal issues like COVID-19 vaccinations, climate change and Black Lives Matter on Yammer, with some of these being the most engaged communities across the world-wide analysis. 

SWOOP’s interviews found that by extending their public voice into the enterprise on Yammer, employees are looking for their leaders to take a position on societal issues. The research found Yammer is becoming key to an organization’s overall employee experience. 

“We saw a growth, especially in the US, of bottom-up communities being formed to address societal issues,” said SWOOP Analytics CEO Cai Kjaer. 

“Employees are looking for their leaders to take a position on the big issues. This is something leaders cannot ignore, as staff resignations appear to be rising.” 

Other key findings include: 

• Yammer participation through readership has grown to, on average, 85% of users, yet active participation has dropped to, on average, 31% of users. 

• Some of the increase in Yammer readership can be explained by Yammer communities being accessed through Outlook and Microsoft Teams.  

• Organizations are still confused about where to host larger groups. 

• Sentiment analysis was used to identify the most positive communities. These communities are providing stress release from the daily grind of remote working.   

• SWOOP research found patterns consistent with exploration and innovation in 25% of Yammer Communities analyzed.   

Using real-time data, SWOOP analyzed 75 organizations, more than 4,300 Yammer communities with more than 2.8 million employees who made 13 million+ interactions on Yammer in the six months studied.  

In the full report, SWOOP provides guidelines and measurements to improve and compare Yammer network performance.  

Download the report at: https://www.swoopanalytics.com/yammer-bm-2021 

For more information, or to arrange a media interview, please contact:   

SWOOP Director of Communications Sharon Dawson on +61 490 386 151   

or SWOOP Director, North America, Luke Sinclair on +1 845 293 2887.