In-House Social Media
Posted February 27th, 2012
The focus on social media has been for companies to send their message to the outside, attracting new talent or generating publicity. But in a development important for human resource departments, it turns out that companies increasingly are turning to social media in-house as a way to connect employees and tap the energy and creativity of the company workforce, according to David Ferris of Workforce Management.
One example of this has been at the giant grocery store chain SuperValue, which has about 135,000 employees spread over 44 states. Because it is such a huge organization, connecting people had become a problem, Ferris says. So the company set up a social media platform called Yammer which was used internally. It is helping the company boost sales, according to SuperValue officials. The company uses Yammer to set up working groups. These groups might consist of managers from similar departments, like liquor or deli, or managers whose stores serve similar markets, such as college towns.
A recent survey of Fortune 500 companies showed that almost three-fourths of them are planning to put more emphasis on social media.
But social media experts say to avoid problems with this technology, don’t put the cart before the horse; that is, don’t get so caught up in the kind of technology you are going to use and forget about the purpose you want your social media to serve. The technology doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you want to use it for. The first thing you need to do, they say, is set up goals for what you want to accomplish, and to make those goals as specific as possible – with specific problems and specific people.
Too often, what happens is that companies set up the social media without any overall purpose in mind. Workers then tend to post randomly and no real conversation really develops. Managers use it simply to issue orders. As a result it proves useless, leading management to abandon the entire idea.
But used effectively, social media can become a real change agent, as shown by SuperValue, generating good ideas from workers, Ferris says. It can also help to attract younger workers to the company, build loyalty among employees and promote a strong company culture.
If your San Francisco-area company needs skilled and reliable technology workers, contact a recruiter at Bayside Solutions. We can source, vet and place workers for your temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire needs. We look forward to hearing from you!
