WinWire – Federation University Australia Viva Engage

Customer background

Federation University is Victoria’s premier regional university, and have been educating Australia’s leaders, innovators, and thinkers for 150 years. As a multi-campus university with locations spread from regional Victoria to Brisbane, Fed Uni recognises the importance of employee engagement to foster a sense of community and connection amongst its staff.

Fed Uni chose IComm for their expertise in digital transformation, specifically in implementing and improving communication solutions in an M365 environment. Having worked with Fed Uni over the last decade on projects such as Skype for Business upgrades, Teams deployment, modernising VC/AV spaces, and consulting on security, Intune, and training and adoption, working with IComm was an intuitive decision.

Customer outcome we are driving

Fed Uni sought to enhance its employee engagement and communication channels, recognising that its current approach was not yielding results. Despite sending emails to 2600 users daily, there were no responses or sign-ups to training. In addition, staff engagement surveys revealed dissatisfaction with the one-way communication from leadership and weekly news digests.

The surveys underscored the need for a two-way, real-time communication platform to foster a sense of community. Although Yammer had been deployed in the past, it had never been formally launched and was not used.

Responding to this feedback, the Fed Uni team sought to establish an effective digital feedback channel that would enable improved communication.

Partner impact

IComm's successful deployment of Viva Engage with Federation University, saw the team implement and improve their communication solutions by leveraging the full potential of their existing M365 environment with Viva Engage.

IComm and their Cloud Collective partner Antares, worked closely with the university to understand their goals, plan training curriculums and engaging all staff. ‘Fed Engage’ went live on 1 March 2023, resulting in a significant increase in employee engagement and measurable improvements in communication effectiveness.

This scalable solution has the potential to benefit a range of customers across multiple verticals, whether existing Yammer or 'greenfield' customers who do not use any business social platform.

IComm are proud to be an early adopter and implementor of the Viva suite of solutions, and are now firmly placed among the first and most experienced Viva solutions partners.

Better together

The Cloud Collective team of IComm and Antares worked with Fed Uni to launch Viva Engage, implementing best practices, streamlining communities and providing training to over 900 users. Within 5 days of its launch, Viva Engage garnered almost 20,000 impressions and was read by 1250 staff, exceeding all expectations.

The introduction of Viva Engage bridged the gap between a disconnected workforce, providing a sense of community through live updates and two-way communication. Replacing daily news emails, the platform's P2P communication allowed for clear reactions and an opportunity for everyone's voice to be heard, regardless of location. A recent success story was the hospitality department's weekly bake sale, which previously resulted in leftover baked goods being discarded. The team is now able to communicate and raise funds for the department, reducing waste.

Fed Uni's dedication to enhancing engagement and collaboration across the organisation was exemplified by the impact of Viva Engage on its staff. Within just 5 weeks of its launch, Viva Engage achieved a substantial increase in staff engagement, surpassing the levels of the past 5 years.