It’s sad, but Yammer ended up with a terrible reputation. Many organisations had made multiple attempts to gain adoption, and it was widely ignored or unpopular with employees. No doubt this was one of the factors behind the renaming and relaunch of the product as ‘Viva Engage’. Meanwhile, Workplace by Facebook had seen successful adoption, but ultimately decided to leave the market. Many other ‘enterprise social’ tools have come and gone in the marketplace.

It would be easy to blame the technology solutions for these struggles, but in reality, all of the products offer good functionality. Failure is not inevitable, however, and there have been numerous instances where enterprise social has been hugely successful, clearly demonstrating its value. Over the years there have been many winners of the Intranet & Digital Workplace Awards for enterprise social deployments.

The reality is that many of the problems actually stemmed from organisations ‘doing it wrong’, taking approaches that could never lead to widespread and sustainable success. What was often lacking was a clear direction, plus a focus on the foundational elements that needed to be put in place.

In recent client work, Step Two has taken a decisive step to address these deficiencies, with this article sharing our Enterprise Social Framework. This outlines all the pieces of the puzzle, enabling a truly strategic approach.

Start by avoiding key ‘anti-patterns’

While knowledge management (KM) often talks about ‘patterns’ that describe repeatable approaches that deliver success, it’s also useful to discuss ‘anti-patterns’ that describe approaches doomed to fail. There are three key anti-patterns for enterprise social:

1. ‘Piloting’ enterprise social. Despite social tools being around for more than a decade, many organisations still choose to conduct a ‘pilot’ as their first foray into the space. Often released to just a small cohort, such as IT, these projects fail to have a clear intent and ultimately don’t lead to widespread adoption. Hint: we know enterprise social works, from many winners of the Intranet & Digital Workplace Awards, such as ANZ, Virgin Trains, and Deutsche Post DHL.
2. Having just one purpose. In other cases, organisations target just one set of (perceived) needs, such as improving senior leader engagement. In practice, even when leaders are on the platform, using it for just one purpose fails to generate ‘critical mass’. Hint: enterprise social can play a much bigger and broader role in organisations, and needs to do so if it’s going to demonstrate its value.
3. ‘Let a thousand flowers bloom’. One pervasive philosophy has been to deliberately let enterprise social grow and evolve organically, with employees finding and driving the value of the platform. While this generates pockets of vibrant use, adoption is inevitably patchy (and often low) across the rest of the organisation. Hint: there must be clear purposes and intents that drive the usage of enterprise social, while still enabling and empowering bottom-up usage.

These anti-patterns apply across all products and vendors, and are equally applicable to today’s enterprise social tools as they were in the past.

(The Pathway to Social cards provide another way of illustrating these anti-patterns.)

Introducing a strategic framework

The Enterprise Social Framework should above is designed to help real-world organisations make decisions and create plans that will lead to successful (and sustainable) uses of enterprise social tools, regardless of which platform is used. In our client work as a consulting firm, we’ve found it invaluable in moving conversations on from “should we do” to “how should we do” social.

We’ve long said that enterprise social should be tackled purposefully, and the new framework puts further shape around the many potential purposes of these platforms.

Alongside this are a set of enablers that need to be put in place, from launching the tools in an effective way, through to monitoring and governing them.

Six purposes for enterprise social

The truly wonderful thing about enterprise social platforms is how many different ways they can be used, from informal chats and sharing of funny cat photos through to formal communities of practice and other KM activities. The framework groups these into six main categories:

1. Leader engagement. Enterprise social can provide a channel for casual ‘what’s happening in my day’ posts and other informal updates that put a ‘human face’ to senior leaders, supplementing informal internal comms. It also provides a way for leaders to participate in discussions and activities across the organisation, and enables two-way interactions in a way that intranet news or email newsletters don’t.
2. Community engagement. One the most common objectives for enterprise social is to foster a greater sense of ‘belonging’, which can be achieved in part by broader interactions across the organisation on social topics, as well as via social groups on topics such as pets, fitness, travel, etc. Communities of interest, including those for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and employee resource groups (ERGs) also help to encourage employee connections.
3. Organisational culture. If the intranet is the primary channel for ‘need to know’ formal comms, then enterprise social can be the place for ‘nice to know’ information. This includes celebrating the successes of staff and other ‘good news’ stories from across the organisation. Enterprise social can also provide support for peer-to-peer recognition, in a ‘lightweight’ way that supplements performance assessment reviews and other formal HR practices.
4. Innovation. It’s long been recognised that ‘wisdom of the crowds’ can be tapped when enterprise social is used to power internal ideation, with either formal or informal review and implementation practices. Social tools can also share insights and stories from customer interactions in an engaging fashion, with these ‘voice of the customer’ activities helping to connect the entire workforce to customer and frontline needs.
5. Knowledge management. Communities of practice (CoPs) are one of the most successful practices to come from the KM field, and social tools are often a better platform than collaboration tools that are focused on the needs of teams or projects. Peer-to-peer support, where employees ‘shout out’ for help can be remarkably effective, particularly in frontline environments. More pervasive practices, such as ‘working out loud’ are also best enabled by enterprise social tools.
6. Internal communication. Depending on the organisational context, corporate comms need not be delivered via email or the intranet, with enterprise social providing a valid alternative which can work better when trying to reach field staff and other frontline groups. In any larger or more complex organisation, there is a need to share local news (that’s created locally), and enterprise social offers an engaging way of doing this.

Seven enablers

There are seven key enablers that must be in place for enterprise social to succeed, across people, process and technology aspects:

1. Purpose. As outlined above, enterprise social tools are a means to an end, rather than an objective in their own right. Only when it’s clear what the intended outcomes are does it become possible to coordinate people, make plans and ensure that the necessary supporting elements are in place.
2. Activation. A comprehensive communication and change management plan will be required to get enterprise social off to a flying start. While the basics of how (and why!) social tools should be used must be covered, activation activities can be funny (such as the Llamas featured in Virgin Trains’ comms campaign) or aligned with major events (such as coordinating with the Olympics for Comcast’s social launch).
3. Digital fitness. New skills and behaviours will be needed to make the most of enterprise social, and it shouldn’t simply be presumed that “if they use Facebook at home, they’ll know how to use social at work”. Align training and adoption activities with broader digital literacy initiatives, such as those for Microsoft 365 as a whole.
4. Facilitation. The role of ‘community managers‘ (also known as community facilitators) is crucial for helping social groups and communities of practice come together and effectively use enterprise social.
5. Governance. While there will always be a ‘lighter touch’ approach to collaboration of social spaces than other collaboration tools, basic practices and behavioural norms will need to be established (as part of a clear governance stance for enterprise social). There must also be clarity on when enterprise social is the right tool to use, versus other products such as Microsoft Teams.
6. Analytics. Keeping track of usage allows the overall trajectory of enterprise social to be monitored, highlights both successes and potential issues, and is a key element of building a business case for continued use (and investment!).
7. Technology. All modern enterprise social tools have a range of features that can be enabled or configured, and the tools will need to align with broader digital workplace platforms and policies.

How to use the framework in practice

The Enterprise Social Framework is born from the practical realities of how organisations work, and is designed to provide tangible assistance and guidance to project teams seeking to make something of enterprise social. Consider the following recommendations on how to use the framework in your situation:

Set clear objectives

In our client work, it’s always fascinating when we get the project team together at the beginning of the engagement to understand their goals for enterprise social. They might have the clear objective of “getting social done” (to quote an ill-fated political campaign) but within the first ten minutes of discussion identify 12 goals or objectives. All of which are valid in isolation, but some are in conflict with each other. And to aiming for all 12 at once will lead to certain failure.

Use the structure of the Enterprise Social Framework to put clearer shape around the different intentions, and narrow them down to concrete purposes. (It can be helpful to look at what other organisations have done as part of this process, something that Step Two can also help with.) Even then, the list may be long, so plan on sequencing the ‘rollout’ of social activities (see below for more on this).

Ensure broad stakeholder alignment

Once the project team has converged on an agreed set of purposes to tackle, it can feel like it’s ‘mission accomplished’. There are many other stakeholders for enterprise social, however, that need to be considered. These include:

• senior leaders
• IT
• internal communications
• HR
• KM
• key business unit leaders
• risk & compliance
• records management

Engage these stakeholders early, and make sure that they are aligned and on board with what’s being planned. Also ensure that any concerns or constraints that are raised (see below) are addressed appropriately. Again, it can be helpful to share examples of what other organisations have done to show what’s possible, and what it looks like in practice.

Identify constraints

There’s no doubt that even with the changed digital landscape of organisations post Covid, there can be some significant headwinds to the adoption of enterprise social. These can include:

• frontline staff don’t have devices
• frontline staff are actively dissuaded from using devices during shifts
• doesn’t match senior leader personality or communication style
• already excessive levels of ‘noise’ in the digital workplace
• limited interest from specific business units
• technology constraints
• security considerations
• current licensing
• competing priorities
• other technology projects currently in play

These challenges range in size and complexity. Make sure the project team has members who have good visibility of the practical realities and challenges that will be encountered. It might not be possible to avoid the constraints entirely, but they can be worked around if necessary. Careful sequencing activities can help, as early successes can ‘unlock’ further possibilities.

Plan a campaign, not a launch

Where there is more than a single purpose being pursued, the project team must look beyond a single ‘big bang’ launch (which is rarely a successful strategy). Instead, a longer campaign of communication, promotion and adoption activities should be planned.

In our client work, we help teams to create a quarter-by-quarter plan of attack, covering the first twelve months. These campaigns consist of ‘above the waterline’ activities such as launches of specific capabilities or uses of the social tools, as well as ‘below the waterline’ elements that address the key enablers that need to be in place as things progress.

In addition to reducing the burden on the project team (and others), the quarter-by-quarter plan unlocks the ability to create a sustained communication campaign. Have some fun with this! As seen in various winners of the Intranet & Digital Workplace Awards over the years, social adoption campaigns can be both delightful and powerful.

Make enterprise social a priority

While enterprise social has had a chequered history, this is no way reflects the potential (and value) of the tools. As can be seen in the Enterprise Social Framework, many important objectives can be achieved with the widespread adoption of social tools.

Take a strategic approach, plan a sustained (and fun!) campaign, and put in place the necessary enablers. With this recipe, sustainable success awaits!