More efficient deployment of consultants
Posted: Tue May 27, 2025 7:16 am
1. Collaborate with customers
Patrick Atallah of Social4ce explained how his team works with a client via an external network. This option in Yammer allows you to give outsiders controlled access to your own network. This allows you to collaborate with clients directly in Yammer, without giving them access to the entire company network. The purpose of this external network is to find new employees for the Social4ce client. Documents such as CVs and other information about the applicants are shared via this network and potential candidates are discussed there. In this way, people who work at different locations can go through the application process much faster than before.
2. Internal 'marketplace' for projects
Joost Beukers is director and partner at Verdonck, Klooster & associates . Joost talked about the resource list to data manager who was no longer needed – or hopefully is being used for more useful work. Previously, he was responsible for the distribution of projects among the consultants. Nowadays, these projects are simply posted on Yammer. Consultants indicate their interest and discuss online among themselves who can best take on the assignment. This knife appears to cut both ways: resources are saved (namely the resource manager) and employees gain more influence on their own work, which makes them more involved.
3. Crowdsourcing among employees (across departments)
Vice President Frank Wammes of Cap Gemini said that his organization is one of the largest users of the platform. Yammer has been used by them from the beginning. Frank indicated how the internal knowledge sharing has improved greatly. The system has now become fully established, employees are encouraged to actively share their knowledge. Frank has a lot of customer contacts in his position. As an example of what Yammer means to him, he shared the following case.
In preparation for an important meeting with a major client, he asked for input on Yammer. He asked his employees to provide concrete cases that definitely had to be discussed at the meeting in question. In 1 hour, literally 50 ideas were posted and a lively discussion started. Ultimately, 10 suggestions could quickly be selected. The client meeting was a great success because of this.
The most fun case I heard was about the Yammer group “on the beach”, which had set up a service provider for the benchwarmers. These companies cannot use their consultants 100% of the time. The company simply instructed its people to report “I have no assignment now” when they were temporarily without an assignment. As a result, the service provider ensured that far fewer freelancers had to be hired and that their own staff was deployed much better. Unfortunately, I do not know which company this was about, because this case was shared with us within 60 seconds at the networking event by a fly-by sales rep.
Patrick Atallah of Social4ce explained how his team works with a client via an external network. This option in Yammer allows you to give outsiders controlled access to your own network. This allows you to collaborate with clients directly in Yammer, without giving them access to the entire company network. The purpose of this external network is to find new employees for the Social4ce client. Documents such as CVs and other information about the applicants are shared via this network and potential candidates are discussed there. In this way, people who work at different locations can go through the application process much faster than before.
2. Internal 'marketplace' for projects
Joost Beukers is director and partner at Verdonck, Klooster & associates . Joost talked about the resource list to data manager who was no longer needed – or hopefully is being used for more useful work. Previously, he was responsible for the distribution of projects among the consultants. Nowadays, these projects are simply posted on Yammer. Consultants indicate their interest and discuss online among themselves who can best take on the assignment. This knife appears to cut both ways: resources are saved (namely the resource manager) and employees gain more influence on their own work, which makes them more involved.
3. Crowdsourcing among employees (across departments)
Vice President Frank Wammes of Cap Gemini said that his organization is one of the largest users of the platform. Yammer has been used by them from the beginning. Frank indicated how the internal knowledge sharing has improved greatly. The system has now become fully established, employees are encouraged to actively share their knowledge. Frank has a lot of customer contacts in his position. As an example of what Yammer means to him, he shared the following case.
In preparation for an important meeting with a major client, he asked for input on Yammer. He asked his employees to provide concrete cases that definitely had to be discussed at the meeting in question. In 1 hour, literally 50 ideas were posted and a lively discussion started. Ultimately, 10 suggestions could quickly be selected. The client meeting was a great success because of this.
The most fun case I heard was about the Yammer group “on the beach”, which had set up a service provider for the benchwarmers. These companies cannot use their consultants 100% of the time. The company simply instructed its people to report “I have no assignment now” when they were temporarily without an assignment. As a result, the service provider ensured that far fewer freelancers had to be hired and that their own staff was deployed much better. Unfortunately, I do not know which company this was about, because this case was shared with us within 60 seconds at the networking event by a fly-by sales rep.