Sharpen Up Your Yammer Skills With Certifications

Picture yourself holding a pencil. Got it? Now this is a relatively simple tool that no one ever had to “train” us how to use. But we did receive a lot of “training” about what to use the pencil for, when to use it, how to think and express ourselves with it. Almost 12 years (and college too if you count that!) of teachers teaching us the thinking and the process by which we use our pencil.

So what does this have to do with Yammer? Replace “pencil” with Yammer in the paragraph above and you have a similar resemblance. Heard in the corridors of our customers and internally, “Gosh, Yammer is so easy to use our users will just figure it out.”  You are right. Yammer is really easy to use and we do that on purpose. We can get over the “how to” pretty quickly and dig into the business context. And remember… It’s not your parents’ software training.

I work with many customers of all sorts and sizes – some have been around for a long time and some are brand new start ups – education, healthcare, retail, and every type of business in between. Everyone has a different comfort level of accepting new technology. Yammer brings about a certain openness and transparency within your organization. This can be really new for some people and by helping and supporting them through this transition is a great way to aid their learning about enterprise social network.

Here is another thought. What if you have grander plans for how you want to weave your enterprise social network into your business. How do you go about doing this? We have worked with a few customers to “up-level” the conversations in their Yammer networks from a watercooler chat to businesses conversations and getting work done.

We know that not everyone learns the same way and we understand that. At Yammer we have a few different ways for people to learn about our product. YammerU is the learning community for people who want to figure out Yammer and learn more indepth about using Yammer. You can also understand Yammer’s functionality faster by getting answers to basic “how-to” questions. Engage with other new users in a test environment to become comfortable using the features of Yammer before having activity posted your company network.

Want to go a bit deeper in sharpening your Yammer skills? You can enroll in of of our new Yammer Certified Professional Programs. Offered through YammerU these certifications allow you to learn advanced Yammer skills that help you promote best practices, improve employee engagement, and identify use cases that streamline business processes. Currently certifications available are Yammer Certified Power User (YCPU), Yammer Certified Community Manager (YC2M), and Yammer Certified Trainer (YCT).  The different certification programs will allow you to focus on your strengths and apply them your organization’s Yammer network. There are also community groups for our certified users to continue the conversation after they are certified.

A Yammer Certified Power User will learn how to strengthen engagement within your company’s Yammer network by:

• Creating Groups and Pages
• Managing information with topics, bookmarks, notifications, and applications
• Effective information sharing and supporting a culture of best practices

Next, a Yammer Certified Community Manager will learn how to demonstrate effective thought leadership in building a more engaged culture with enterprise social network by:

• Developing a community strategy and improving engagement
• Leading productive discussions and creating and managing Groups and Pages
• Promoting greater transparency and collaboration across the company

Finally, Yammer Certified Trainer will learn how to use Yammer within existing training programs and effectively bring social learning to your workplace by:

• Guiding your organization on how to get the most value from Yammer
• Educating users on the business value of using Yammer for their jobs
• Incorporating Yammer into existing training programs

We know that Yammer is really easy to use for some people and some people may need a bit more help. We are here as an extra pair of hands. Working with your organization to help build awareness about a new way to collaborate and transform your organization by educating your associates on best practices and business use cases. In addition some education will help boost engagement by learning features of Yammer while incorporating it into their workflow. Finally this will help begin to build a community of Yammer members who not only consume the information but participate in the conversations.  Contact your Account Executive to find out more information about YammerU or any of the certifications. Don’t have an AE? Contact contactsales@yammer-inc.com!

But don’t take our word for it, see what our customers are saying.

“Social media may be easy for some employees but others may struggle with technology or with trying new ways of doing things. It isn’t just about learning how to use the tool, it is about discussing how it could be used in different pockets of your organization. Having hands-on-training has been critical to the rollout and adoption of Yammer at our organization.”
– Erin Grotts, Director of Internal Communications SUPERVALU

The best part about the training was..  ”getting the participants inside Yammer so that could experience the training and practice in real time and hands on.”
- Ashley Brooks, Communications Coordinator SUPERVALU

“The interactive components where the audience had time to get on-line and complete activities led by training team was awesome!”
- Camye Mackey, Vice President of HR, B. F. Saul Company

“We interjected fun, education, best practices, etc. It was a great way to launch it!”
- Dave Makarsky, Vice President of Operations B. F. Saul Hospitality Group

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