As the ‘asking rate’ for better employee experience increases rapidly, what do you do as the country’s leading sports body? There are no easy answers. It’s a ‘sticky wicket’! Cricket Australia joined hands with Microsoft to employ a data-driven approach to improve the team-member experience. Howzat!
Although Cricket in Australia has been long recognised as a summer sport and therefore a seasonal game, it’s not an on-and-off affair for those working behind the scenes. In an increasingly digital world, it’s an ‘always on’ requirement.
To deliver a great experience for players and fans, employees at Cricket Australia need to be passionate about what they do, according to Senior Client Services Manager Emma Cashen.
“Our employee experience is really important to us across the nation,” she says. “We put our employees first to deliver the best outcomes.”
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A New Partner Takes Stand
Microsoft and Cricket Australia Cricket Australia teamed up to deploy Viva Insights, a module of the employee experience platform Microsoft Viva. Powered by Microsoft Office 365 and experienced through Microsoft Teams – which Cricket Australia was already using – Viva Insights enables the organisation to see groups of unidentified people who were working longer hours.
“For example, our data shows that our senior leaders were working longer hours which could potentially lead to burnout,” Cashen says.
“This data made it clear to our senior leaders that they need to take better care of themselves and lead by example for their people. By taking leave or logging off, it sets the right standard for their people to follow.
Cricket Australia is also looking to educate employees on how to view their insights at individual and team levels and then act on the data-driven recommendations from Viva Insights.
Looking forward, the organisation wants to integrate its engagement survey results, which are currently run through Culture Amp, into Viva Insights.
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Captain’s Innings, followed by a solid batting order
With the ‘success’ of Cricket Australia, some of the state associations are taking keen interest in deploying Viva Insights for better employee experience.
Cricket Australia will also deploy Viva Insights to the State and Territory Cricket Associations and integrate their data and insights, giving “an Australian cricket-wide view”.
“I can see some of the State Associations jumping on board really quickly,” Cashen says.
“They also rely on data to improve their employees’ experience and engagement, which feeds into their strategy planning.”
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Adding more Viva modules to the line-up
Cricket Australia plans to deploy other modules as part of the Viva suite, such as Viva Connections and Viva Learning, to further enhance the employee experience.
“Viva Learning would be an easy one to roll out next. We have LinkedIn Learning, which we can embed in Viva Learning,” Cashen says.
“But I think Viva Connections is going to be the biggest game changer for us. We have an intranet and an enterprise social media platform in place; however they are standalone.
Cashen says that Cricket Australia is also keen to explore how it can leverage the Viva suite and Teams to bring everything together in a central location.
As the new normal challenges the established employee retention practices, it’s imperative enterprises unleash new methods to improve team experience. Cricket Australia has shown one way.
Cricket Glossary – Just in case you need a refresher:
- Asking rate – The rate at which the team batting needs to score to catch the opponent’s score in a limited-overs game.
- Captain’s Innings – A high-scoring individual innings by the captain of the batting team considered to have changed the course of a match.
- Crease – One of several lines on the pitch near the stumps (the “popping crease”, the “return crease” and the “bowling crease”) most often referring to the popping crease.
- Howzat – The cry of a fielding team when appealing; notable because an umpire is not obliged to give the batsman ‘out’ unless the question is asked.
