This report provides a look at those organizations that recognize and benefit from what can be achieved when social technologies are paired with the new ways of working they enable. That paired approach delivers shared value; generating complex business outcomes for the organization while making employee work experience easier and more fulfilling.

1. Digital Workplace
COMMUNITIES
In 2021
Accelerating Quickly and Generating Shared Value
A Report by Rachel Happe,
Engaged Organizations

2. ABOUT ENGAGED
ORGANIZATIONS
Engaged Organizations works to make
organizations work for humans. We are
committed to bringing connection, joy, and trust
to workplaces by fostering community-centric
cultures that energize employees.
Digital Workplace
Acceleration
Partnership
Executive Education
& Speaking
Strategic
Workshops
Enterprise
Community Audit
HOW WE COLLABORATE WITH CLIENTS
www.engagedorgs.com

3. RACHEL HAPPE
STRATEGIST * ANALYST * ADVISOR
Rachel has worked with a wide variety of organizations, including:
EXPERTISE
STRATEGY ✽ BUSINESS MODELS ✽
LEADERSHIP ✽ GOVERNANCE ✽
TECHNOLOGY ✽
COMMUNICATIONS
Prior to Engaged Organizations,
Rachel founded The Community
Roundtable. She published 12 years
of groundbreaking research
looking at how people engage in
online networks.

4. ABOUT THIS
RESEARCH
Digital Workplace Communities in 2021 is a report of
the State of Community Management research done
by The Community Roundtable.
This report focuses on internal / enterprise
community program data. The objective of enterprise
community programs is to increase employee
connection, engagement, and effectiveness.
Enterprise community programs are growing in
importance as organizations look to shift culture,
work behaviors, and technology use in support
effective distributed and hybrid workplaces.

5. Key Findings
DIGITAL WORKPLACE COMMUNITIES IN 2021
1. Community Programs Deliver Efficiency and Innovation
v Community Programs Gain Momentum
v Shared Value Propels Culture Change
v Community ROI Prioritizes Transparency, Trust, and Engagement
2. Community Programs Become A C-Suite Imperative
v Commitment to Community Programs is Growing
v Executives are Supportive, Engaged, and Invested
3. Enterprise Community Teams Remain Vulnerable
v Mixed Progress for Enterprise Community Teams
v Community Teams Struggle to Support Enterprise Enablement
v Lack of Resources Limits Community Program Potential

6. RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
This is a report of the 2021 State of Community Management research data, collected by The Community Roundtable. These data were
collected from 242 community programs in January and February of 2021. These research participants contributed to an extensive survey
that collected information about the strategy, leadership, management, technology, programs, financial, and measurement aspect of
community programs.
Research participants were solicited from The Community Roundtable’s contact list, members, and clients. Because of the self-selected
group of respondents, the collection method, the number of participants, the range of community program maturity, this type of research is
a macro-level picture of trends but cannot be used, on its own, to set specific metric objectives. However, because of the comprehensive
nature of the research and the historical trends collected over the last decade, it can be used to understand the direction, speed, and change
in trends.
This report analyzes one segment of this research that is relevant to internal, employee community programs, which represents 63 of the 242
participants. The data in this report include the average responses for that group. For a number of metrics, this report also includes an
Advanced segment made up of those programs that are formally structured as Centers of Excellence or internal program averages from the
2020 research.
For more information, see the 2021 State of Community Management Report

7. RESEARCH
DEMOGRAPHICS
These demographic data represent the 63
internal community programs from the 2021
State of Community Management research.
Enterprise community programs tend to be
found, on average, in larger organizations.
Larger organizations are complex, spread
across many geographies, and include a
myriad of business units, functional groups,
partners, and field staff. The average age of
these programs is 4.6 years.
There is no dominant department into which
enterprise community programs fit.
Programs are slightly more likely to report
into IT than to other functional groups, but
community teams sit in a wide variety of
places within organizations.
FUNCTIONAL DEPARTMENT
INDUSTRY
ORGANIZATION SIZE COMMUNITY SIZE

8. THE CHANGING ROLE OF
ENTERPRISE COMMUNITIES in 2021
Enterprise community programs are not new. They are used by organizations to
share expertise, connect with colleagues, and get support. The first serious
recognition of them came in 1991 when Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger wrote
Situated Learning.
In the last decade, many traditional community of practice programs, have evolved
by adding online community networks. Other parts of organizations have also
adopted enterprise social networks as ways to better communicate, capture
expertise, or increase efficiency. Executive interest has also grown over the years
but until recently has not been accompanied by significant financial support.
That trend changed in 2020 thanks to the global pandemic and the pervasiveness
of Internet access, which enabled knowledge workers to work remotely. While most
organizations still have no enterprise community team, those organizations where
programs existed and executives were supportive suddenly had an urgent,
immediate opportunity to help employees collaborate effectively. That can be seen
in a 50% growth in budgets between 2020 and 2021 – and a 145% growth in funded
roadmaps.
Impact of COVID on Recognition of
Enterprise Community Value
2%
36%
51%
11%
100%
Decreased
Significantly
Decreased Stayed the same Increased Increased
Significantly
2%
36%
51%
11%
100%
Decreased
Significantly
Decreased Stayed the same Increased Increased
Significantly

9. 2021
<1 2.2
7 45
$261 $388
32% 45%
1, 967% 2,736%
Enterprise / Internal Community Program ROI
Annual Answers / Member
Annual Searches / Member
Annual Cost / Member
Percent of Community Budget Spent on Staffing
49% 78%
54% 69%
27% 53%
Direct Connection to Business Outcomes
Communications Efficiency
Culture Change
Speed of Innovation
From Untapped Potential…
2020
…to Support and Momentum
A decade of research has shown incremental improvements in community program maturity as well as minor variations based on the
research population. The 2021 research was the first time there were significant changes to and inter-related range of metrics, including:

10. Community Programs
Deliver Efficiency,
Change, and Innovation

11. COMMUNITY PROGRAMS GAIN
MOMENTUM
For years organizations have been exploring the implications of the changing
information environment. The primary response is to invest in new technologies.
However, this growing stack of technology has not been matched with
corresponding changes to the way in which organizations work.
Operating with yesterday’s governance model and yesterday’s metrics,
organizations have changed little systemically. They are still pursuing outdated,
production-era metrics that assume more is more. In a chaotic environment,
however, the influx of information is clogging work processes designed for scarcity
of information. It is creating work cultures of anxiety, burnout, and decreasing trust.
Organizations are not equipped to navigate a world where everyone’s job requires
communication skills. Every employee and functional group is overwhelmed by the
problem but no one entity has the scope of influence to effectively address it. It is a
systems issue requiring a system-wide solution.
Community programs are being established – often under CXO direction – as an
enterprise enablement group with shared services and capacity to support behavior
and culture change in business groups.
Adoption of New Behaviors Accelerated
by Enterprise Communities

12. Community Programs Address
Complex Business Outcomes
COMMUNICATIONS
EFFICIENCY
CULTURE
CHANGE
SPEED OF
INNOVATION PRODUCTIVITY
EMPLOYEE
RETENTION
78%
69%
53%
50%
41%
Percent of Community Programs that Show Direct
Connection to the Following Outcomes

13. Communities Positively Impact Culture by Fostering
Behavior Change
80% of Community Programs Positively Impact Culture
4% 17% 66% 13%
4% 13% 62% 15% 6%
83% Report Effectiveness of Communities in Fostering Behavior Change
Not at all Slightly Moderately Very Extremely
Significantly
Negative &
Negative
Neutral Positive Significantly
Positive

14. 72%
SIZE OF PERSONAL
NETWORKS
62%
ENGAGEMENT
WITH EXECUTIVES
60%
COMFORT WITH
TRANSPARENCY
47%
ASYNCHRONOUS
WORK
Communities Support and
Reward Behavior Change
Percent of Community Programs that
Increase Digital Workplace Behaviors
AGILE WORK
PRACTICES 36%

15. SHARED VALUE PROPELS
CULTURE CHANGE
Management is no longer about ensuring tasks are complete or employees are
constantly producing but about inspiring coordination, collaboration, and creativity.
Where management practices could once use extrinsic incentives to increase
production, those techniques hamper innovation. Managing for what currently does
not exist is very different and requires fostering trusted communities that offer
employees inspiration, connection, support, and challenges from peers.
Communities succeed not by incentivizing production tasks through extrinsic
rewards and punishments but by engaging and exciting employees’ intrinsic
motivators. This is done by providing opportunities for individuals to develop and
engage autonomy, mastery, and purpose. To foster these community cultures,
managers must focus on managing the the system and its governance to align with
employees’ intrinsic motivators. That work requires a deeper understanding of
employees so that an organization’s shared purpose draws them in while
addressing a business opportunity.
Shared purpose, however, is not enough. To succeed, workplace cultures have to
generate shared value; giving employees easy pathways to make an impact while
also achieving business objectives. This community-centric strategy creates a
thriving, generative, and reinforcing system.
ALIGNING FOR SHARED BENEFIT
Case
Study
A European manufacturing company that
benefited from high employee retention found that
high retention also made personal networks the de
facto approach to finding or sharing information,
which make onboarding new employees quite
challenging. For field staff, it was even worse.
Compounding that challenge was the expense
generated when field staff could not find a solution.
It left the business exposed and the employee
frustrated.
By using online communities, employees had
many more options and pathways to connect,
making finding a solution and reducing costs,
much less difficult – and helping their field
employees look like heroes.

16. Shared Value Strategies Inspire Engagement
Employees are rewarded when they engage in
communities, which encourages further engagement
Communities reward employees by making work
easier, more interesting, and more meaningful
Interestingly, the SWOOP Analytics 2021 Yammer Benchmarking report which captures data
across many organizations also shows that 31% of community members are actively engaged.
39% 30% 17% 7% 7%
Engagement Rates
Inactive Validate Share Ask & Answer Collaborate

17. CONNECT – 80%
PROVIDE ANSWERS – 78%
ASK QUESTIONS – 76%
FEEL HEARD – 65%
FEEL SEEN – 59%
LEAD – 33%
COMMUNITIES EMPOWER EMPLOYEES TO…
87% FASTER ANSWERS
72% NETWORKING
70% PROF DEVELOPMENT
68% NEW IDEAS
58% TRUST & CONFIDENCE
…AND GENERATE TANGIBLE BENEFITS
Stakeholder Profile:
EMPLOYEE
Employees Engage When Given Pathways for
Growth and Meaningful Work

18. Community
Programs Become
C-Suite Imperative

19. COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY
PROGRAMS IS GROWING
In 2016, executives’ perception of communities was largely neutral. Two years later
more executives had opinions about communities, but it was decidedly split. Today,
83% of executives have a positive perception of community programs. It is a fairly
dramatic swing in a short period of time, which suggests an uneven understanding of
the value community approaches in the business context and perhaps the changing
enthusiasm for social media.
Regardless of expressed perception, tangible support and financial investment has
been weak. Part of the challenge is that community programs, while they can
demonstrate impact, do not have obvious place in the organizational structure. In
some cases, this leads enterprise community programs to be run out of a CXO’s office
with discretionary spending, which can get a program going but limits its growth.
The pandemic shifted this dynamic. Executives suddenly, viscerally understood the
value of enterprise community networks that can connect employees across time and
location. For those with existing community programs, those programs helped
organizations transition easily to remote work when faced with the urgent and
immediate need to do so. Those programs saw engagement, visibility and value grow
significantly.
In Five Years, Executive Perception of
Communities Has Evolved Significantly
0%
15%
30%
45%
Very Negative Negative Neutral Positive Very Positive
Executive Perceptions of Community, 2016 - 2021
2016
2018
2021

20. 11%
39%
27%
Community Program Budgets
Grew 50% in 2021
Budgets and Funding for Roadmaps Grow
2020
Average
2021
Average
2021
Advanced
Funding for Roadmaps
Grew Almost 3X

21. COMMUNITIES MAXIMIZE THE
POTENTIAL VALUE OF EXPERTISE
Enterprise communities often fail to gain traction because they have little
guidance or management support – and successful communities need support
to shift behaviors that change the way organizations work. Lack of familiarity
with communities gives many users the perception that they are the same as
team chat platforms, because the user interface and functionality is similar.
However, the architectural differences significantly impact enterprise value.
Team chat gives teams a comfortable private space to interact. Team chat
spaces are siloed, invite-only, and mostly private, which makes them great for
contextual, in-flow work but locks away expertise and access to it.
Community platforms support open, accessible, and permeable spaces, that are
accessible to everyone – critical for expertise re-use. Communities are also opt-in
for individuals, which allows them to explore new ideas and connect with new
people across the organization. The ambient awareness of enterprise
conversation increases alignment, deepens trust, and reinforces organizational
culture, making communities a strategic enabler for remote and hybrid work.
TEAM CHAT
Siloed, mostly private, and invite-only
COMMUNITIES
Unified, mostly open, and opt-In
Hard
Boundary
Permeable
Boundary

22. COMMUNITY ROI
This community ROI model was developed as a universal metric to measure any
community, regardless of use case. It looks at the value of answers contributed and
by how often answers are found. The goal is an easy to understand, consistent
approach that can be used for various workflows and because of that uses high-
level, aggregate data. When applied to a specific workflow, refinements can be
added to capture a more accurate total ROI for reporting purposes. The ROI model
and associated data points:
Enterprise Community ROI
5 Data Points ROI Calculation
1. Value of Answers:
x = Answers * Value of Answer
2. Networked Value of Answers:
y = (Searches * % Successful) * Value of
Answer
ROI
(Value of Answers + Networked Value of Answers) -
Program Cost
----------------------------------------------
Program Cost
1. Number of answers
2. Number of searches
3. Estimate of % of successful searches
4. Financial value of an answered
question
5. Cost of the community program (z)
For stakeholders, this ROI metric highlights the impact of capturing expertise and,
critically, increasing its re-use. Re-use increases when engagement, trust in, and the
size of communities increases, which is the objective and value of community
management.
ROI is Generated by Capturing Expertise
and then by Its Reuse

23. COMMUNITY ROI in 2021
This community ROI calculation is heavily weighted toward information re-use
and the transformative value that generates in avoiding waste and accelerating
workflows. The more re-use, the higher the ROI. It highlights the need to
encourage and reward active engagement so that expertise is captured, but it
also recognizes the need for great search and discoverability.
The more times a piece of expertise is accessed, the more quickly people can
move on to new challenges and new ideas. Easy access to tacit knowledge and
experts can reduce knowledge workflows significantly, often by days or weeks.
This chart, the ROI Field of Possibilities, shows the variance possible between a
scenario where no community expertise is re-used to a scenario where re-use is
maximized. The orange line in the middle shows what can be reasonably
expected for average communities. The drop in the second year represents a
period where investment in operations increases faster than engagement and
member growth.
The things that increase re-use of expertise are trust, ease of discovery,
community size, response time, and relevance of expertise to members.
ROI Field of Possibilities

24. COMMUNITY ROI PRIORITIZES
TRANSPARENCY, TRUST, AND ENGAGEMENT
Enterprise community value has been notoriously challenging to
calculate. There are a few reasons for that, including that:
• Most internal collaboration does not impact sales or revenue
growth directly, which makes financial value harder to identify.
• Those who work in knowledge management and information
functions have less experience with financial and business
models, making it harder to develop financial models.
• The instinct when calculating ROI is to find the objective value of
the information itself, which is almost impossible. Its impact on
workflow however, is its realized – and relevant – value.
Information is only as good as its impact on people’s work. Looking at
the time saved by having access to trusted expertise is an approach by
which you can identify specifics. Translating time into the cost of that
time is a more effective – and understandable – way to determine the
financial impact of easy, fast access to community-vetted expertise.
THE POWER OF INFORMATION
SEEKING AND ACCESS
Case
Study
A manufacturing company, when looking at how
project teams engaged, found those projects they
deemed successful had much higher rates of
information seeking in their initial phase.
Understanding existing expertise before new work
begins allows project teams to spend considerably
more of their time on building, increasing innovation.
Search
Collaborate
Create
Successful
Projects
Un-Successful
Projects
Initiate Plan Execute Close/Handoff
ENGAGEMENT BEHAVIORS

25. Stakeholder Profile:
EXECUTIVE
Executives Perception Of
Community Programs
2%
11%
41%
41%
Executive Level Approving
Community Program Budgets
C-Level
56%
Vice
President
19%
Director
25%
Executive Level Approving Community
Budgets
Executives Are Not Just Supportive and Investing,
They Are Engaged in Strategic Decision-Making
INVOLVED IN
STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING - 63%
RECEIVE
COMMUNITY REPORTS – 32%
RECEIVE
COMMUNITY TRAINING – 25%

26. Enterprise Community
Teams Remain
Vulnerable

27. COVID created an inflection point for enterprise community programs,
increasing their visibility and urgency as employees quickly scrambled to work
remotely. That surging need was rarely matched by more staff or budget. In
fact, it was more likely that full-time team staffing decreased as organizations
looked to conserve spending in an uncertain environment.
While full-time staff contracted from the 2020 research average, part-time staff
more than tripled. These part-time team members are typically cross-functional
leaders who support the community program either with technical,
communications, and measurement expertise – or by acting as advocates and
leaders who coordinate between business groups and the central community
team.
Given the year-over-year (vs COVID-specific) increases to budget, the growth in
funded roadmaps, the percentage of programs with executive involvement,
and the visibility and commitment of C-level executives, it is likely that
enterprise community programs have gained support. The transition to more
part-time staff may also indicate that community programs have gained
meaningful traction more broadly across organizations.
The Pandemic Increased the Visibility
and Urgency – But Not Resources
MIXED PROGRESS FOR
COMMUNITY TEAMS

28. Enterprise Community Teams Have Few
Standard Practices and Roles
Community programs rely on many
part-time staff…
Community Team Staffing
Budget
$199,612
Average Full-time Staff 1.70
Budget/Full-time Staff $117,550
…have few consistent roles…
Ad hoc/
Informal
13%
Decentralized
18%
Decentralized
with a CoE
29%
Centralized
39%
Other
2%
…and no dominant structure

29. 41%
They run a lot of programs… …split their time between different
disciplines…
…and respond to frequent requests
Small Teams Are Juggling A Diverse Workload

30. In Addition to Direct Support, Community Teams Provide
Enterprise Enablement Services
91% of community teams act as CoEs but only 43% are explicitly resourced as CoEs and
they deliver a range of enablement services
43%
48%
9%
Community Teams As CoEs
CoE Acting as CoE Not a CoE
29%
66%
40%
68% 68%
85%
65%
24%
43%
46%
63% 65%
70% 72%
Enterprise
Governance
Metrics and
Reporting
Consulting &
Business
Analysis
Technical
Support
Playbook &
Templates
Training Coaching
Enablement Services Offered by Community Teams
Advanced Average

31. Not Surprisingly, Lack of Resources Is the Biggest
Challenge for Community Teams,
Community teams’ biggest challenges
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Visibility
Engagement
Urgency
Team
Enthusiasm
Staffing
Budget
Impact of COVID on Community Team
Decreased Significantly Decreased Stayed the same Increased Increased Significantly
Impact of COVID

32. Stakeholder Inclusion Is One of the Most
Important Roles for Community Programs
45%
54%
55%
Cross-Fuctional
Leaders
Community
Members
Community
Leaders
Groups Producing Communitiy
Programs
25%
32%
50%
54%
63%
Executives
Cross-Functional
Leaders
Community
Team
Community
Members
Community
Leaders
Stakeholders Who Receive Training
27%
39%
59%
63%
66%
Cross-Functional
Leaders
Community
Members
Community
Leaders
Executives
Community
Team
Stakeholders Involved in Strategic Decisions

33. EMPLOYEES ARE DROWNING
IN NETWORK EFFECTS
The amount of information and content in the world has accelerated quickly
and is now too hard to absorb, never mind process. It has fundamentally
changed our relationship with information. There are so many sources for
similar information that it is increasingly difficult to know what to trust. This
has played out in devastating ways in civic society, but that dynamic is also
playing out in every organization that relies on knowledge.
All the responsibility and none of the control
Communications channels have network effects; the more people use them,
the more valuable they are. Individuals are left to decide which channels to
use and, because of that, the most valuable channel is often determined by a
popularity contest rather than by what is most effective for the work to be
done. Without collective decisions about use, individuals are at the mercy of
every other individuals’ decisions – so they have to be in ALL the channels.
Employees are spending more and more time communicating instead of
creating new value.
Interested in ideas for addressing this? Read the Full Blog Post
Enterprise community teams are
evolving into digital workplace
enablement teams; evaluating,
designing, and supporting changes
to work environments.

34. Stakeholder Profile:
COMMUNITY LEADER
Community Leaders Are Critical to Fostering
Positive Engagement & Cultures
47%
53%
56%
56%
59%
79%
85%
Technical Support
Program
Management
Mentoring
Community
Advocacy
Moderation
Expertise
Visibility
Building
Relationships
Objectives for Community Leadership Programs
Maturity of Community
Leadership Programs Objectives for Community
Leadership Programs

35. q Define Strategic Priorities
RECOMMENDATIONS
For EXECUTIVES
q Assess Current Collaboration Practices
q Fully Fund an Enterprise
Community Team
q Identify Executive Sponsors and
Operational Leads
For COMMUNITY
PROGRAM LEADERS
q Benchmark Current
Practices
q Formalize Stakeholder
Programs
q Audit Community Team’s Work
Against Capacity & Skills
q Project Growth in Engagement,
Value, and Resource Needs
q Engage Peers to Identify
Opportunities and Risks
q Build a Community of Community
Leaders Across the Organizaiton

36. SWOOP Analytics 2021
Yammer Benchmarking
Report
The Community Roundtable’s
2021 State of Community
Management Report
RELATED
RESOURCES
Interested in more?
Here are some other resources to get
deeper or different perspectives on the
digital workplace and engagement.
OrangeTrail and Knowman
Social Collaboration
Maturity Report

37. RECOMMENDED
EXPERTS
There are a growing number of experienced
enterprise community leaders. Most of those
leaders are doing the work in full-time
leadership roles.
I’ve included some of the colleagues who do
this work as consultants, most of whom
have also had experience leading enterprise
community teams. Experts in this space
come from a variety of backgrounds – IT, KM,
L&D, Communications, and more – and they
sit at the intersection of them, which can
make them difficult to find.
Here are a few we recommend.
Céline Schillinger
Simon Terry
Stan Garfield
Nancy White
Maddie Grant
Luis Suarez
Ana Neves

38. ENGAGED ORGANIZATIONS
How we collaborate with clients
www.engagedorgs.com
Digital Workplace
Acceleration
Partnership
Executive Education
& Speaking
Strategic
Workshops
Enterprise
Community Audit
A retained partnership service includes
coaching, staff mentoring and feedback,
executive support, and outsourced capacity
to keep strategic work on track. Let us give
you more time back.
Workshops can jumpstart a community
strategy, get a team thinking together, or
educate stakeholders. This multi-session
service can be delivered in-person over the
course of two days or online over two weeks.
Executives’ time is precious. They want to
understand concepts, application, and
financial returns. By bringing research, case
studies and a wealth of experience we add
credibility to your community initiative.
Research is a great way to start any strategy
and planning cycle. With a decade of data
and experience, we can provide you with a
research-backed assessment and identify
your biggest opportunities.

39. Tell us what you think
and stay in touch!
Rachel Happe
rachel@engagedorgs.com
@rhappe
@engagedorgs
www.engagedorgs.com