The Social intranet Barometer - simply-communicate · The Social intranet Barometer. Through 2016,...

SimplySiBThe Social intranet Barometer

Through 2016, simplycommunicate and simplysucceed ran a survey of the use of social or collaboration platforms, such as SharePoint, Yammer, Jive, Telligent or

Salesforce Chatter, within their businesses. These platforms are sometimes referred to as Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs). It revealed a mixed picture.

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The survey 3

Summary findings 4

Detailed findings 5

Who’s got what? 5

Who is using the platforms? 6

The business case for the social platform 8

Use cases while planning 9

Choice of platform 10

Level of commitment 11

What the staff want 12

Governance, HR and staff involvement 13

Launch and after 14

Marketing after launch 15

Managing the platform 16

Groups 16

Rewarding contributors 17

Reporting 18

Conclusion 20

About us 21

Contents

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The surveySome 290 medium, large and very large enterprises filled in the survey, between April and October 2015. They ranged in size between 250 and 200,000 employees (averaging over 35,000), and in total account for more than 2,500,000 employees worldwide.

They cover a wide range of sectors, including travel and leisure (12%), technology (11%), government (10%) and financial (10%).

The vast majority of respondents (85%) work in internal communications, or have the word ‘communications’ in their job titles.

Others include intranet managers, channel managers, knowledge managers, change consultants or are in marketing.

The survey results therefore reflect two things:

1. The actual state of play withregard to ESNs and collaborationplatforms in a representativesample of medium, large andvery large enterprises in 2015.

2. The knowledge of the IC teamwith regard to this.

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The survey results point to a growing use of social and collaborative platforms; however, they confirm the findings of others, that adoption and demonstrable success are patchy.

In addition:

• Management increasingly understandthe value of social and collaborativeplatforms;

• However, those managing the platformsrarely have access to the tools orresources they need to do so properly;

• There is a great preponderanceof Microsoft products, namelySharePoint and Yammer.

Adoption rates for Yammer, in particular, are lower than for non-Microsoft platforms, but overall adoption rates reflect widespread concern that social and collaborative platforms are failing to realise the highest hopes of their most vocal advocates.

The responsibility for introducing such platforms and demonstrating their value is usually with the Comms team, and/or the IT team. There is rarely adequate budget for launching and promoting use.

The analytics tools available to the platform managers are overwhelmingly basic or non-existent. As a result, qualitative data (stories) tend to be used in preference to quantitative when demonstrating the value of the platform.

Summary findings

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Detailed findingsWho’s got what?

The vast majority of respondents already have (70%) or are thinking about introducing (21%) a platform for employees to collaborate or communicate socially. Just 8% were not thinking about it. It is not easy to get comprehensive or unbiased figures from other sources to compare these results, but in January 2015 the management consultants Mackinsey suggested that around 35% of companies they surveyed worldwide were introducing such platforms.

The much higher figure in the simplysurvey finding reflects the interests, bias and motivations of those who received the simplycommunicate messages, and who troubled to complete it. It is probably skewed in favour of organisations who have introduced, or are thinking of introducing, such platforms.

Of those who already have such a platform or are thinking about introducing one, almost 50% use Yammer, and 38% SharePoint. In all, an amazing 75% of these respondents are using, or thinking of using, one or both of these products (just 14% mentioned both, despite the two platforms being bundled in the increasingly popular Office 365). This leaves just one quarter of the market for the ever-growing number of other vendors (who range from established players such as Salesforce Chatter, Jive and Telligent to new entrants like Slack and Hubchat). Next most popular platforms on the survey were Salesforce Chatter (5%) and Jive (4%).

What platforms are you using?

Some of the platforms in use are very mature – they have been operational for five years or more. The majority, though (and including those that were under consideration when the survey was completed and can be assumed to be launched in 2016) are under 24 months old. Since most social platforms take 18 months to bed in and for the new working habits to become second nature, most are therefore still unlikely to have completely proved their worth.

Some of the older platforms are currently being replaced, and the replacement is under review.

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Who is using the platforms?Of those companies that already have a social or collaborative platform, 72% indicated that they are already accessible right across the organisation; 80% of those with SharePoint say that SharePoint is available across the business, whereas only 67% of those using Yammer say the same. The higher availability of SharePoint probably results from several factors:

1. It is “officially” introducedand maintained by the ITteam, whereas in some casesat least, Yammer is usedin the unsupported freeversion, and is likely to appealto early adopters rather thanthe bulk of staff.

2. SharePoint, with its team-sites,document collaboration, taskallocation and other features, is

probably essential to workflow and team working.

3. SharePoint’s use is likelyto have the support of themanagement.

4. As a primarily conversationalsocial tool, excellent for quickknowledge sharing, Yammermay be perceived as moreappropriate for some kinds offunction than others.

Other business use of these platforms are in specific departments or roles, especially in comms and IT.

We should caveat this: in many businesses there are departmental or team implementation of collaborative tools, and these may have been introduced or maintained without the knowledge

of the IC team. Some will be legacy systems, yet to be switched off; others will be SaaS apps that can be introduced “under the radar” (Yammer can be an example of this). A full audit of collaborative apps within an enterprise is a time-consuming and difficult exercise; but without a knowledge of what is being used and by whom, the task of introducing and driving adoption for a universal social platform across the business becomes far more difficult.

The vast majority of desk-workers have access to the platforms, as one might expect, but so too do increasing numbers of home-workers and staff on the road. This means that excellent mobile access is vital – something not easily achieved within on-premise SharePoint. Shop- or factory-floor

workers are also increasingly being given access to the enterprise social platform; not all have access to PCs, but where the Comms strategy requires all staff to access the platform, it is important that mobile access is excellent via an easily downloadable app.

There are issues involving status grey areas: employees contracted to work for third parties may not have access; contractors or volunteers working for the enterprise sometimes are given access, sometimes not.

Which employees use the platform? Is the platform accessible across the whole business?

If not, which departments use the platform?Page 5

page 6

(continued) I don’t need to resupply the other three charts on p 6, but they should all be read against each other so it’s important they are grouped together and are all sized identically so they can be instantly compared.

Which employees use the platform?

Other

Shop-floor

On the road

Home-workers

Desk-based

0% 23% 45% 68% 90%

If not, which departments use the platform?

0%

13%

25%

38%

50%

Comms Marketing HR Other


0%

23%

45%

68%

90%

Desk-based On the road Other

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Page 6 (continued) I don’t need to resupply the other three charts on p 6, but they should all be read against each other so it’s important they are grouped together and are all sized identically so they can be instantly compared.


Other

Shop-floor

On the road

Home-workers

Desk-based

0% 23% 45% 68% 90%

If not, which departments use the platform?

0%

13%

25%

38%

50%

Comms Marketing HR Other


0%

23%

45%

68%

90%

Desk-based On the road Other

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Despite this widespread access to the platform, actual use appears to be far lower than it might be. Adoption rates are hard to quantify, and analytics vary from system to system (and adequate reports are frequently not available to those answering this survey); but when asked to determine proportions of active users defined as logging in at least once a month (not even posting or necessarily even interacting with the content in any way), just five companies in our sample (a little over 10%) indicated they have an adoption rate of more than 60%. Almost four times as many indicated their adoption rate was 15% or less.

This low adoption figure may suggest that the platform is moribund and providing very limited value to the business; it may though perhaps indicate where the project is still in pilot phase or has not been rolled out to all staff.

Nevertheless, the overall picture of low adoption (when 60% is normally considered the target for a flourishing

platform) is worrying, and is in line with other industry surveys, including that of Gartner which predicted that, by the end of 2015, 80% of social platforms would not be meeting the objectives set for them.

When we look only at companies using Yammer (with or without SharePoint), we see the results are skewed towards lower adoption rates than for the survey as a whole. The reasons for this are not clear from the survey data, but it may relate to the two most common ways of introducing Yammer: either “under the radar” which often results in difficulty in reaching beyond the early adopters; or through a decision by IT, where the business case for adoption is not necessarily fully understood across the business. The adoption rates for users of non-Microsoft platforms appear higher, but it should be noted that the sample size is small. Interestingly, some of the highest adoption rates are reported by companies using home-built, non-proprietary platforms.

# of companies using Yammer, % of staff as active users.

# of companies using non - Microsoft platforms, % of active users

# of companies with percentage of staff as active users. #

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The business case for the social platformThe low adoption rate is not the result of senior management taking no interest (or being unaware of the platform – they were involved in at least 55% of cases). However, it may be that they were not as engaged as they perhaps needed to be. Social software flourishes where it meets a clear business need, and where it is aligned with the strategic objectives of the business as a whole. Then everyone can see why to use it, and not treat it

as a ‘nice-to-have’. However, in a large minority of cases, the board have not been involved in determining the objectives.

But where they are agreed, the main objectives are pretty consistently: knowledge sharing, employee engagement, breaking down siloes, improved communications and sharing good practice.

Are the objectives agreed at board level?

Main agreed board objectivesPage 7

Don’t know if your design can accommodate this shape, but it looks better to my eye:

Same issue as page 7

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Main agreed board objectives

0%

18%

35%

53%

70%

Knowledge exchange Break down silos Share good practice Innovation Others

Main use cases at planning stage

0%

13%

25%

38%

50%

Communications Answering questions Others# Knowlegde e

xcha

nge

Impro

ved st

aff

Break d

own silo

s

Impro

ved c

omm

s

Share

good p

ractic

e

More

effii

cient w

orking

Innova

tion

Idea Gene

ratio

n

Others

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Use cases while planningDespite the wide spread of objectives agreed by the board, overwhelmingly the primary use case, while constructing the business case for investment, was the need for improved communications in the business. This is perhaps not surprising since, in 47% of cases the Comms team took the lead on constructing the business case (as opposed to 33% of the IT department). Social platforms provide a much-touted new channel for getting information to staff in an easily assimilated manner, and, more important, in a manner that staff can engage with.

Next most significant is communities of practice, which accord with the objective of sharing good practice. Perhaps surprisingly, getting questions answered quickly does not feature particularly highly. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of social platforms in this area, but much of it is perhaps serendipitous, and not strong enough to make the case for investment.

Alongside the main use cases shown on the diagram, others mentioned include business development, ideation, project management and pre-sales support.


Page 7

Don’t know if your design can accommodate this shape, but it looks better to my eye:

Page 8 Same issue as page 7

Main agreed board objectives

0%

18%

35%

53%

70%

Knowledge exchange Break down silos Share good practice Innovation Others


0%

13%

25%

38%

50%

Communications Answering questions Others

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Choice of platformA third of respondents did not know the budget for the platform, and whether there was a budget for technical improvement – suggesting that the decisions made by IT are not entirely transparent to the comms team. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it is not uncommon for the Comms team to be presented with

a solution by IT, and asked to make sense of it.

The major considerations in choosing a platform are security (primarily an IT concern), integration with other enterprise systems (of major concern to the business as well as to IT), mobile access and a good user experience. Purely technical

issues such as whether the platform is in the cloud or on-premise are significantly further down the list. And the opportunity to take a free trial, or to set-up an ‘under-the-radar’ installation to test the platform, ultimately are less important drivers in the choice of platform.

Consideration in choice of platform

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Considerations in choice of platform

0%

13%

25%

38%

50%

Security User experience Suits IT policies Other

Platform governance

0%

18%

35%

53%

70%

Comms Marketing Exec Suite Other

Planned launch

0%

15%

30%

45%

60%

Ongoing roll-out Soft launch Full launch

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Level of commitmentAbout half the companies in the survey had approval for the full site before launch, and half set up a pilot project for evaluation before resources were released for the full platform. However, in 80% of cases, where the board was involved in the decision to introduce the platform, the commitment was a go-ahead for the full platform. Where senior approval has not been sought, the choice is more commonly to begin with a pilot and to evaluate its results.

The pilot suffers from inherent dangers:

1. A platform available to only a portion ofthe workforce will not demonstrate thebenefits – such as improved communicationsor knowledge sharing – that rely on totalcoverage.

2. A pilot is unlikely to have all the expensiveintegrations of the full platform, and this willsignificantly reduce its usefulness in the worksituation.

3. A pilot may be switched off if it fails itsevaluation.

If forced to have a pilot, the focus and choice of audience should be carefully considered to produce visible and easily comprehensible results. Ideally avoid the label ‘pilot’, which can imply qualified commitment, and use a word like ‘benchmark’ that points to a successful outcome.

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What the staff wantIt might seem that – before introducing new collaborative methods of working and new opportunities for staff to engage with the business at all levels – it would be natural to involve the staff in the decision-making process. Very few do – or if they do they focus on a small, predefined group rather than everyone.

While many communicators look forward to the demise – or at least the re-invention – of the annual staff survey once they have their new social platform, very few (under 25%) actually use the survey to assist with the planning of that platform.

But those that do, receive a message back loud and clear, “we want to be able to collaborate and to work more easily”. Whereas many social platforms are promoted as opportunities to disrupt business-as-usual, to break down siloes or to improve the flow of knowledge, the staff want to be able to work together and spend their time more productively at work.

The discrepancy between the two views of the benefits of a collaboration platform and the priority given to collaboration needs over top-down information, raise significant questions for internal communicators. This is mainly because, in many cases, it is they who will have to drive adoption for the platform, and ultimately prove its value back to the board.

Creating, delivering and ensuring the understanding of top-down information has always been the staple of IC work; but, if the role is to stay relevant in future, an even more important aspect will be facilitating collaboration, easier working and “side-to-side” communication.

These drivers are significantly different from those (above) prioritized by the board when agreeing to investment. There the emphasis was on improved communications, employee engagement and knowledge exchange.

Primary drivers - from staff surveyDid you survey staff before the launch?

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Governance, HR and staff involvementJust as the communications team and/or IT led the introduction of the platform in many cases, so the two departments are the most involved in ongoing governance. Governance is a portmanteau term than can mean anything from technical maintenance and access to the platform – clearly an IT function – to ensuring that policies and procedures in the business are aligned with platform use.

The survey reveals that the wider concept of governance of the social platform is poorly understood – 90% of businesses surveyed restricted the responsibility for governance to either one or two departments (usually communications or marketing and IT). A mere 5% named a governance team that involved more than three departments. The HR department

was involved in just 10% of cases, which spread the responsibility most widely. It is probably significant that almost all those who involve HR in their governance report better than average adoption rates (between 45 and 100%).

Perhaps for similar reasons, very few companies fully involved the staff in creating the policies for the platform’s use. Again, most of those that did so reported better than average adoption rates.

Platform Governance

Staff involvement in policies

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0%

13%

25%

38%

50%


Platform governance

0%

18%

35%

53%

70%


Planned launch

0%

15%

30%

45%

60%


#

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Launch and afterMore than half the platforms in our survey were launched spontaneously or piecemeal. Of those that had a planned launch, there was a fairly even spread between a soft launch (meaning opening the platform to early adopters or beacon groups and teams, to test and optimize it before launching more widely), full launch to the whole business, and an ongoing rollout.

These approaches are not mutually exclusive, especially in a very large organization. This emphasizes that the process of opening the platform to staff, informing them of its existence, technically making it available to them, and training them to use it is a complex and resource-intensive process.

This makes it particularly disappointing that so few organizations (just 25%) allocate any marketing budget for that launch.

In this situation, promotion was mainly done through word-of-mouth, brand ambassador programs, the intranet and email. Where budget was available, competitions, posters and events were run to attract interest, and articles about the platform were written for the newsletter; some organizations also made videos. One even used external social media to attract staff to its internal platform.

Marketing budget for launch

Planned launch

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0%

13%

25%

38%

50%


Platform governance

0%

18%

35%

53%

70%


Planned launch

0%

15%

30%

45%

60%


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Marketing after launchGiven that so few have a marketing budget for launching their platform, it is hardly surprising that just 25% have one after launch for driving and maintaining adoption levels.

Communicators use a suite of alternative tactics for driving adoption, especially:

• Push communications

• Positive posting and commenting by thesenior management

• Hands-on training sessions

• YamJams

• Visiting branches and teams to train themand answer questions

• Photo competitions

• Personal encouragement

• Exclusive content

Marketing budget after launch

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Managing the platformFew people have the resource fully to manage the platform and support its members. The large majority rely on the community to manage itself.

GroupsA key aspect of running a platform is collaborative or organic groups, allowing them to be set up, and ensuring they are actively used as effectively as possible. This is often an area that is hard for the platform managers to control, especially on platforms like Yammer where any site member can create a group, and on which there is no way of easily identifying which groups are active and which are not.

Not surprisingly, respondents reported a very wide range in the number of groups, with 7 (13%) respondents claiming to have more than 1,000.

By correlating the number of reported groups against the number of employees in the organization, a picture emerges, of some platforms with one group for every 10 or so employees, and others with one group per 200 employees.

Managing the collaboration platform

# of groups against # of employees

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Managing the platform

0%

13%

25%

38%

50%

Community Full-time manager plus champions Part-time manager

Reporting

0%

8%

15%

23%

30%

Never Monthly Occasionally Don't know

#

Community

Full-time manager

Part-time manager

Full-time manager p

lus champions

Management team

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Rewarding contributorsDespite the discussion of gamification in recent years as a means of engaging and rewarding engagement, very few appear to use these or other methods of rewarding participation. More than half of all platforms in this survey had no formal way of acknowledging contribution – which is surprising when employee engagement was a primary driver identified by the management. Virtually none rewarded people in a manner that had financial implications.

And it is possible that the need for rewards can been overstated. Of the higher-performing platforms (more than 45% adoption), 60% have no means of rewarding contributors, and just 25% use competitions.

Rewarding Contributors

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ReportingAn absolute basic of management is producing and interpreting reports, which makes it both surprising and worrying that 25% of respondents with a live platform never report on its effectiveness, and an equal number don’t know whether such reports are compiled.

Even among the higher performing platforms, a not-dissimilar pattern is visible, though only 13% claim never to report against activity.

One reason may be the paucity of suitable data. While the most popular collaboration and social platforms are supplied with analytics and dashboards, some of them – notably for Yammer – are limited in the information they give and in its use. Yet without good information as to the way the platform is being used and the adoption levels, topic by topic, it is very hard for the comms team confidently to drive adoption.

Just one respondent has access to the sophisticated social network graphing that allows usage to be monitored in exceptional detail. Others are still stuck at the primitive level of counting the number of users active at particular times, or even the number of sign-ups.

One reason may be the paucity of suitable data. While the most popular collaboration and social platforms are supplied with analytics and dashboards, some of them – notably for Yammer – are limited in the information theygive and in its use. Yet without goodinformation as to the way the platformis being used and the adoption levels,topic by topic, it is very hard for thecomms team confidently to driveadoption.

Just one respondent has access to the sophisticated social network graphing that allows usage to be monitored in exceptional detail. Others are still stuck at the primitive level of counting the number of users active at particular times, or even the number of sign-ups.

ReportingPage 17

Managing the platform

0%

13%

25%

38%

50%

Community Full-time manager plus champions Part-time manager

Reporting

0%

8%

15%

23%

30%

Never Monthly Occasionally Don't know

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Despite this, significantly more people claim they have been able to demonstrate the value of their platforms than those that say they cannot.

They are able to do this not through data, but through pointing to good practice and success stories. Examples include:

• Teams taking ownership oftheir messaging and cross-functional groups being setup

• Idea generation and crowdsourcing

• Discussion and collaboration

• Showing the impact ofmicroblogging and how itspread in the organisationcross departments

• Examples of knowledgesharing for customer benefit

• Interaction from employeesabout a vote to decide a newcompany logo

• New products that came outof the discussion betweenteams working on differentprojects

• Event support and eventengagement as well as salesactivity

• Supportive success stories;shared proposal content;circles of interest

• The ‘value for money’ register,where staff can contributetheir savings and ideas.

Demonstrating value

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ConclusionThe 2016 survey has revealed a mixed picture:

• Management increasinglyunderstand the value of socialand collaborative platforms;

• Those managing the platforms(overwhelming the Commsteam) rarely have access to thetools or resource they need todo so properly;

• Adoption rates remainstubbornly low.

In this situation, sooner or later, hard questions will be asked about the value of investment in the platforms.

Simplycommunicate and simplysucceed are committed to supporting IC and others to achieve and demonstrate success with their social and collaborative platforms. The 2016 survey will demonstrate trends over the last 12 months, and will explore some of the underlying issues in more detail. #

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About ussimplysucceed is the UK’s leading online consultancy service for proving, planning and developing Employee Social Networks (ESNs) and collaborative platforms.

Our expert consultants offer online advice, toolkit and templates backed up with over 150 case studies.

We have helped companies from 500 staff to 50,000 develop and grow their platforms to deliver improved engagement, better communications, closer teamwork and collaboration as well as taking the friction out of many daily business processes.

For more information see our website: www.simply-succeed.com #

The Social intranet Barometer - simply-communicate · The Social intranet Barometer. Through 2016,...

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