From Yammer to Microsoft Viva Engage
 

In the early days of the Internet, e-mail communication was still considered a blessing: Colleagues could communicate quickly and electronically, without needing to send documents by snail mail or fax, or having to make phone calls. Since then, the flooding of emails that accumulates daily in the accounts of every employee has become a curse. It's not just because countless spam robots are clogging mailboxes with unwanted advertisements.

Programs like "Yammer" already saw the need at the end of the 2000s: They made sure that separate networks could be set up and knowledge and file sharing was simplified. The service taken over by Microsoft will presumably be brought to an end in 2023, but not the original idea - the Viva Engage platform survived and aims to provide everyone at the company with access to communities and conversations via Microsoft Teams. You can post and create stories; the whole concept is obviously inspired by Facebook and Instagram. Essentially, here, we are dealing with an all-in-one intranet, bulletin board, and dialog tool. Microsoft itself talks about an "employee experience platform."

Not only colleagues, but partners and customers can also be better engaged by using of integrated tools. In addition to internal - only e-mail addresses with the same domain are allowed - external networks can also be setup, if desired.
 

Additional engagement tools for employees
 

Other tools have also set themselves the goal of improving internal communication. Some programs have been around for years, others are comparatively new to the market. Below are a few examples:

  • Chatter: This tool has been successfully around on the market since 2009. Chatter ranks among Salesforce and can therefore be easily integrated with other company solutions. It is designed to make collaboration with employees from other departments more efficient and productive and serves the purpose of sharing insights, suggesting ideas, connecting teams, and providing feedback. Groups can be created in which external partners can also be invited.
  • HUMANSTARSapp: This app-based solution can be individually set up for companies of all sizes as an alternative to the intranet. The HUMANSTARSapp ensures that all employees in all locations are connected with each other to improve internal communication. The design is modelled after other social media platforms. Information can also be automatically transferred to the platform from applications already in use, such as SharePoint.
  • lumapps: This intranet solution is based on the Google Cloud Platform. lumapps calls itself the "Digital Workplace und Employee Experience Platform." The tool is intended to promote interaction between employees and improve communication throughout the company. Every employee can create their own dashboard and only see relevant content. The Google search function can be applied to company content using lumapps.