Box Hill Institute - Elevating employees’ voices

When tertiary educator Box Hill Institute put out an expression of interest in its All Company Viva Engage community to join a Pride March through the streets of Melbourne, the internal communications team was blown away by the response. 

It wasn’t the huge engagement the post received that made the biggest impact, but the way employees openly shared their personal stories. Employees at Box Hill Institute were able to safely identify as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community to all their colleagues, share their personal stories and feel supported. 

It reinforced that Viva Engage had become a psychologically safe space at the Box Hill Institute. 

The expression of interest post about the Pride March received the highest engagement numbers on the Viva Engage network for a six-month period, according to data from SWOOP Analytics, followed closely by a follow-up post from the event.  

Samantha Little, Associate Director Internal Communications at Box Hill Institute, said the initial Viva Engage post resulted in loads of sign-ups for the Pride March but more importantly it confirmed Viva Engage had evolved into an organisation-wide networking platform where every employee has a voice. 

The initial expression of interest Yammer post about the Midsumma Pride March.

“It actually created a safe space for people to publicly say in our workplace; ‘Yes, I’m part of that community and I’d love to be there’,” she said. 

“It created this really nice thread of rainbow GIFs and high fives and people sharing their story. That to us was a real game changer because it made people feel like they were part of that platform and ever since then we’ve known that people want to come in and share and Yammer has been that safe space.” 

One of the follow-up Yammer posts about the Pride March.

Part of Box Hill Institute’s employee engagement strategy and employee experience, especially as a part of the internal communications strategy, is to elevate the voice of the employee. Samantha and her colleague Rhi Bell, Internal Communications Coordinator at Box Hill Institute, believe these pride posts achieved exactly that. 

“It’s just all user generated,” Samantha said. 

“It’s really part of our internal comms strategy to create those spaces and elevate the voice.” 

A screenshot from Box Hill Institute’s SWOOP dashboard for Most Engaging Posts.

A thriving community 

The All Company Viva Engage community at Box Hill Institute was ranked in the top 10 of the Most Thriving Communities in SWOOP Analytics’ 2022/23 Viva Engage & Yammer benchmarking based on the measures of community performance, energy (sentiment) and growth (activity and members). 

When Box Hill Institute employees join Viva Engage, everyone is given access to the All Company community. All communities are public and staff are encouraged to explore other communities. There are between 1600-1700 employees at Box Hill Institute, with about 1500 using Yammer. 

Samantha Little, Associate Director Internal Communications, Box Hill Institute.

Engaging posts from other communities are shared into the All Company community, and posts to the All Company community are also shared on the intranet and staff newsletter to encourage staff into Viva Engage. 

Rhi said teams are actively encouraged to post in the All Company feed as opposed to creating their own communities.  

“We try to keep the conversation as open as possible but we also want to reduce department silos and we want people to feel empowered to be able to discuss things that are happening in all areas of the business,” she said. 

Rhi Bell, Internal Communications Coordinator, Box Hill Institute.

Rhi said there had been an exponential growth in Viva Engage since Yammer was softly launched at Box Hill Institute in May 2020. Viva Engage communities were created based on common interests with things like mental health, work from home, health and fitness – the sorts of interests that gave employees some reprieve during the COVID-19 lockdowns. 

Staff benefits and non-essential communications were posted on Viva Engage. Things like offers from health insurance providers for Box Hill Institute employees or offers from Box Hill Institute’s own student businesses like florists, veterinary services and grooming were shared exclusively on Viva Engage. 

“We encouraged those teams to use Yammer to advertise their services so they could take ownership of that story and encourage the two-way conversation,” Rhi said. 

The first big spike in Viva Engage engagement came when then CEO Vivienne King began posting video updates on Viva Engage. Viva Engage was also used for staff awards and to highlight recognition and staff achievements. 

The next spike in engagement coincided with the Communities app (Viva Engage) being linked to Microsoft Teams.  

“The good thing we’ve noticed with this is it’s that exponential growth,” Samantha said. 

“It’s not just us in internal comms coming up with an idea. It’s not just one or two posts that’s causing that spike, it’s really sustainable. I think that was the most exciting thing for us to see over the last couple of months, that growth that’s organically happening, it’s very exciting.” 

Cross-enterprise collaboration 

Recently Samantha and Rhi were swamped with work and hadn’t had a chance to check what was happening across Viva Engage. They were pleasantly surprised to go into Viva Engage to find it thriving with new posts from across the organisation. 

One post that stood out was from the indigenous student support officer telling about an initiative with an organisation which works with indigenous people in the corrections system to support them with art. The student support officer shared examples of indigenous art work to use as digital backgrounds and asked for feedback favourite options. 

“That post has just gone crazy this week,” Samantha said. 

“There are so many different departments picking different options.” 

For Samantha and Rhi, one of the stand outs about this post was the fact so many different departments within Box Hill Institute had become involved in the conversation, showing a break in department silos to collaborate together. It was also an example of working productively during a project, rather than receiving feedback once a project was completed. 

“We are starting to see more of that natural collaboration and getting people to post while they’re working on something to get feedback, rather than afterwards,” Samantha said. 

“It’s exciting to see that happening and where it’s going in the future.”