If it wasn’t for one of the Project Coordinators on my team, Courtney, I might still be in the Dark Age when it comes to social media. She is our go-to for anything regarding LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. She recently attended a webinar about the topic of social media and wanted to share some thoughts on how social media is being incorporated into HR. Take it away, Courtney…
Facebook has 1.06 billion active users, LinkedIn has 238 million active users and Twitter has 200 million active users. Over 72,252,000 people visit social media and blog sites (like this one!) each month. It seems that everyone has dipped their toes into some form of social media. Facebook’s creator, Mark Zuckerberg, predicted four years ago that “over the next five years every industry will have to redesign itself around social.” There has been a big push recently for businesses to go social, not only for marketing purposes but for employee engagement as well. Millennials entering the workforce have come to expect it as a part of business. From using social sites for recruiting and hiring to learning, social media has made its way to HR.
Social media is a great way to find the right employees.
Using social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for hiring purposes is high: 92 percent of companies use one of the mentioned platforms for recruitment. Social media sites are even used to pre-scan job candidates. Check out this infographic about social recruiting from Staff.com. Click here for the full infographic.
Social media is a great way to teach your employees.
Organizations that encourage learning and proactively encourage development tend to be higher performers. Social media enables frequent learning interaction. When choosing a social learning tool, make sure that the tool meets a specific need and you are solving the question: “What am I trying to accomplish?” Also, make sure you know your audience. If your employees are Millenials or easy adopters of new technology, then a social learning tool is likely to be more accepted and used.
Social media is a great way to engage your employees.
Social media gives your employees a voice and a sense of belonging. Employees feel the need to be connected, which can be hard in an event-based environment. Adding a social network to your business removes the hurdles of the event-based environment and solves any issues with employee connectivity. Social media outlets can even be used as a way to collaborate with your employees and share ideas- a virtual brainstorm! Our team knows first-hand how valuable social networks can be when communicating with co-workers across the country. Lockton uses Yammer, an Enterprise Social Network (ESN), which makes keeping in touch so easy. We use Yammer to share new documents, vendor updates, policy changes, upcoming events, hilarious YouTube videos (work-related, of course) and even the standings for our March Madness bracket competition.
Social media is a great way to encourage your employees.
Social media sites can be used as tools to encourage your employee population through incentives or even simply by giving shout outs for outstanding performance. It is an easy way to recognize and celebrate the successes of colleagues in real time.
Social media is a great way to communicate with your employees.
It is such a fast way to get information to a lot of people. ESNs can be used to share news updates, policy changes, etc. in real time. It is also a way for employees to communicate with you. If you are worried about getting negative feedback from employees about your company, encourage conversations to talk about your company positively. It’s a possibility that negativity might come up, but if you address the issue quickly in an understanding way, it will usually fizzle out.
Where does your company stand with social media? Is it embraced? Or are you pretending it’s another fad, soon to pass by?