Using Yammer at Work

Side note: I cannot believe that we are only now just entering into July. I'm one of those people who doesn't feel like time moves very quickly, but this year in particular has inched along like a snail. It feels like it's been years since March when everything started to shut down here in the States because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The topics that we are focusing on this week in class are designing for community building and performance support. One of the tools that we are studying this week is Yammer. Yammer is a Microsoft product that is included as a part of their Office 365 suite. My company, Wiley Education Services, uses it as well as the other products in the package; for instance, we use Teams instead of Skype to IM and videochat with each other during work hours. Yammer is one of the main communication tools utilized by our headquarters in that it is where we can go to catch up on the latest company news. There are also different groups set up within it that you can check out based on your interests. Its user interface looks a bit like a mixture between LinkedIn and Facebook, if you haven't used it yourself yet.

However, many of the features that Yammer boasts can be accessed in an easier manner through Teams or just through plain old email. We receive a lot of instant company news updates via our "channels" on Teams or by email. We can also join multiple channels based on our interests, which office we work in, our department, etc. Because of this, I do not see Yammer as being valuable. I myself hardly ever check it unless I am directed to by instructions in an email. Why even offer this product that is completely redundant when consumers could use some other product and get the same experience without having to buy the entire Office 365 suite? I would not be surprised if Microsoft removes it entirely in future iterations of the suite. 

Have you ever used Yammer? What are your thoughts on it? Do you think that it is a helpful asset, or do you think that it is unnecessary?

"Idea men" by adrielhampton is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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