Iowa DOT employees use Yammer to collaborate, communicate more effectively
Over the past year, you might have received an email from another DOTer inviting you to join Yammer. If you took advantage of the invitation, you found an internal social media platform with many opportunities for employees to share ideas and information.
The Iowa DOT has a “network” on Yammer. To belong, you simply need an Iowa DOT email address. Within the network, employees can form “groups” to explore topics of interest to them.
Most of the districts, several Iowa DOT offices and committees have Yammer groups set up to communicate internally. Groups can be set up as “public” meaning anyone in the network can join, or “private” meaning an employee has to be invited into the group by a current group member. For those who are familiar with Facebook, Yammer functions in a similar manner. The site offers instant messaging, file sharing, and other communications options. Some public groups currently using Yammer are employees interested in Excel use, wellness, GIS information, RMS users, and design ideas, just to name a few.
Rhonda Pecenka of the Office of Construction and Materials, set up one of the first Yammer groups. “I use Excel quite a bit in my job and I know other people do, too. Because I don’t know everyone who is a power user, I thought Yammer would be a great way to connect people so we could ask questions or share tips and tricks with others in the agency.”
For emergency communications, Yammer has become a very valuable tool for the field, Traffic Operations and Strategic Communications groups to connect.
Andrea Henry, director of the Office of Strategic Communications, said, “Using Yammer instead of email during emergencies provides a direct channel for field employees to instantly share what is happening on the roads with other DOT employees who need the information to do their jobs.”
The platform allows everyone in the group to be a part of the conversation, without having to specifically email each person. Yammer also allows users to group conversations based on topics, making it easier to stay on topic. Henry said, “Field employees can share information and photos directly from the Yammer app on their phones and, for our group, this makes it more efficient to get information out to the public more quickly and accurately.”
Any Iowa DOT employee can join the agency’s Yammer network. To log on to the Iowa DOT’s Yammer network, go to www.yammer.com. To set up a Yammer account, use your Iowa DOT email address (all employees now have access to Iowa DOT email) and enter a password of your own choosing. Once you have established your account, you can access the Iowa DOT’s main group (called All Company) and join or set up other groups for employees who may want to share information on this platform.
The Office of Strategic Communications has developed a recorded webinar on the use of Yammer
If you would like to view the webinar, go to:
http://portal/PT/SI/SitePages/Webinars.aspx