U.S. Bank invests in culture building tools for a hybrid world with Microsoft 365

With approximately 70,000 employees dispersed across more than 2,000 locations, U.S. Bank puts technology at the forefront—it’s an important way to keep such a large organization feeling connected. “Our culture is highly collaborative,” says Jason Johnson, Senior Vice President of Employee Collaboration and Productivity at U.S. Bank. “Face-to-face interactions have always been important to our business, but our challenge today is to maintain strong engagements in a hybrid work environment. To do that, we use Microsoft 365 messaging, collaboration, and productivity tools.”

The willingness to embrace new technologies is in U.S. Bank’s DNA says Zephanie Hardy, Senior Vice President of Employee Technology Experience at U.S. Bank. “People here are really keen to adopt and learn new technologies,” she says. “With Microsoft 365, we’re offering employees a great suite of tools and enabling more freedom and flexibility in terms of how and where they work.”

“With Microsoft 365, we’re offering employees a great suite of tools and enabling more freedom and flexibility in terms of how and where they work.”

Zephanie Hardy, Senior Vice President of Employee Technology Experience, U.S. Bank

Microsoft Teams and Teams Rooms systems for seamless meeting experiences

Before rolling out Microsoft 365 across U.S. Bank, employees were driven to collaborate, but the available tools made certain scenarios—for example, hybrid meetings—less than ideal. “Before 2020, people at home would often be at a disadvantage when they joined conversations in a meeting room,” says Johnson. Today, the goal is to create an equal playing field for employees, no matter where they join from. “We’re partnering with corporate real estate to redesign our office spaces and take advantage of technology to promote anytime, anywhere productivity,” he says. Microsoft 365 tools and Teams Rooms systems are a key part of what Johnson calls having “one foot in the future.”

U.S. Bank’s Atlanta location has recently become a showcase for Teams Rooms systems at the company. “The meeting rooms in this location will become Teams Rooms,” explains Johnson. The goal is to create a seamless experience for employees. “Understanding how to start a meeting used to be challenging and intimidating,” he says, noting that many different systems coexisted at U.S. Bank in the past, creating a nonstandard meeting experience. “Our employees know how to use Teams, so they can go into a Teams Room and have a seamless experience without having to be trained how to use the equipment.”

Features like one-touch join and wireless screen sharing are helping employees have more efficient meetings. “We’re excited that we don’t need operational support in the room to help get meetings started and that people don’t need to remember what codes to enter,” says Johnson. With its Atlanta location as a template, U.S. Bank has also deployed Teams Rooms systems in Minneapolis, Dublin, and London, with more locations to come. “We have highly engaged employees who are excited about what we’re bringing to the table with Teams Rooms,” adds Johnson.

Today, approximately 65 percent of U.S. Bank’s workforce is hybrid. For Hardy, successful hybrid work hinges on tools that are intuitively understood by a variety of employee groups, not just technology experts. “People shouldn’t have to look for information about how to use the technology—it should just work,” she says. A consistent experience across devices is another hallmark of effective hybrid tools. “On a phone or laptop, remote or in the office, employees should get a consistent experience,” says Hardy. With those two benchmarks in mind, Teams has become a go-to tool to help employees thrive in a hybrid environment. “We use Teams to create consistency, whether people use it to broadcast to thousands of people or collaborate one-on-one.” U.S. Bank employees now participate in 1.4 million Teams meetings a month, 25 percent of which use video, ensuring that the bank’s face-to-face culture persists in a new hybrid reality.

“Our employees know how to use Teams, so they can go into a Teams Room and have a seamless experience without having to be trained how to use the equipment.”

Jason Johnson, Senior Vice President of Employee Collaboration and Productivity, U.S. Bank

Using Yammer to build communities and send a consistent message

While Teams serves as an entry point to the workday, U.S. Bank employees use Yammer to connect with colleagues. Taking a grassroots approach paid off, and Yammer usage grew organically to reach most of the company today. “The Yammer communities at U.S. Bank are extremely vibrant,” says Johnson. Yammer was initially oriented toward communities of interest but has since grown to encompass a variety of topics, including business resource groups and business units. “Adoption of Yammer started slowly before reaching engagement levels we weren’t expecting at more than 90 percent,” adds Johnson.

Yammer is also a great way to reach a large number of employees with announcements. “For a typical all-company Yammer announcement, we usually get more than 70,000 views in the first six hours,” says Sarah Haase, Principal Product Manager for Collaboration at U.S. Bank. “Company news is published on our employee intranet home page, but cross-pollinating and sharing news with various Yammer communities helps expose announcements to the most people possible.” When Haase and her team created a Viva Connections destination within Teams for employee tech news, they made sure to include Yammer communities on the home page. “We have several areas in our home site that are windows into our very popular Yammer communities so people can post questions and engage in those conversations right from the home site itself,” she says. “It’s much more interactive to have the tools coexist that way.”

“Adoption of Yammer started slowly before reaching engagement levels we weren’t expecting at more than 90 percent.”

Jason Johnson, Senior Vice President of Employee Collaboration and Productivity, U.S. Bank

Supporting customer service and efficiency in a fast-paced business

U.S. Bank Branch Manager Todd Von Achen spends most days mentoring colleagues, interviewing new hires, serving customers, and managing two branches from open to close. While managing such a busy schedule, Von Achen appreciates the way Teams brings communications and tools together in a single space. “Because Teams is such an inclusive platform, we’ve been able to streamline our processes,” he says. In fact, consolidation via Teams is a major benefit of embracing Microsoft 365. “When we rolled out the Microsoft 365 applications, we were able to eliminate extraneous tools and simplify the collaboration landscape at the bank,” says Von Achen. Employees also use Viva Insights to schedule their workdays, adding focus time to their calendars and creating a more balanced schedule. “I’m a big fan of focus time, which helps me manage my busy calendar,” he adds.

For customer-facing employees like the bankers and client relationship consultants who work with Von Achen, Teams is also being used to help improve customer service. “Bankers now feel that they have instant support with customer service questions,” he says. “With Teams, we can share those conversations and resources much more quickly and always present a professional front.” Whether asking for assistance setting up safety deposit boxes or retrieving money from bank vaults, customer-facing employees use Teams to coordinate with their colleagues quickly and discreetly. Von Achen also uses Teams and other Microsoft 365 productivity tools like OneNote and Outlook to stay productive on the go. “I have the Microsoft 365 apps on my phone and tablet everywhere I go,” he says. “Time is the most important thing we have, and I use my time more effectively with Microsoft 365.”

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