LEVERAGING SOCIAL NETWORKS AT WORK: 8 GREAT WAYS FOR THE HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT

One obvious innate human instinct is gregariousness. Even when hidden, for example, in introverts, the fact remains that some parts of the human, man or woman, crave friendship, either with same or the opposite sex, known or unknown. This is why the social scientist have posited that “man, is a social animal.” The crave is always there in man, to be seen, heard or noticed and appreciated by the others.

A deeper look into the Abraham Maslow’s theory of motivation underlines the above proposition. According to him, immediately the basic human needs of shelter, clothing and food are fulfilled, the next need on the line is the need for love; need for association, need to be noticed and appreciated by others. According to this revered scholar, except this need is fulfilled, like other cadres in the hierarchy, the need for achievement which is next may not surface. Even if it does manifests, it is easily frustrated.

The social networks have leveraged on this knowledge and are driving towards making an actual reality of the axiom: “the world is a global village.” Copying the initiators of this technology therefore, human resources managers can very well leverage on the rare advantages offered by these social networks. Some of us really need to change our perspectives and outlooks of and about these social networks. We need to see the positives they could bring to our effectiveness on the job.

Apart from the very and most common usages such as recruitment and selection, online interviewing, marketing and sales, etc into which organizations have put these networks, as human resources managers, we can still use the social networks, at work, in a number of positive ways to enhance both our own performance and those of our entire workforce. Some of the areas of these application are:

•  Building work-groups/teams

• Manage teams

• Ensure team cohesion

• Enhance team performance

•  Discover talents at work

• Conduct surveys in the workplace

• Training purposes

•   Event planning

Let us take a closer look, now.

1.       Building workgroups/teams: We probably already know that on social networks like Facebook, Eskimi, LinkedIn, etc we can create pages for our organizations. Likewise, we could create different groups, possibly on the company’s page, where all members of a particular work-group/team could be meeting and discuss issues relating to their job at work. For example, when there is an assignment for the group, the HR person in charge of the group could start a discussion based on the assignment at hand and ensure that every member of the group participated in the discussion. It could and would really be fun and the HR manager/supervisor would be surprised at the kind of ideas that members of the group whom s/he had hitherto thought knew nothing would come up with.

2.       Manage teams: Team management at times could be daunting given the fact that a team comprises different individuals with different characters and temperaments. One use to which we could put the social networks is bringing the team together in a group as said above and taking time to study individual contributions. The HR manager imbued with the knowledge of organizational/behavioural psychology and group dynamics would, from the members’ interaction know who and who to pair whenever the group has a task to accomplish in the workplace. Besides, it can be used to monitor individual performances in the group. Here, cautions could be issued to individuals without every issue becoming a management issue.

3.       Team cohesion: A team must, as a matter of necessity, be able to stay together in order to achieve the team’s set objectives. One good advantage of using the social networks is that people are easily brought together, even when they are miles apart. So, an HR person could leverage on this to ensure that his team members at work are always together and speak with one voice.

4.       Enhance team performance: “A problem shared”, they say, “is a problem half-solved.” If members of a team have the opportunity to communicate and discuss a particular assignment at any time of the day with individuals coming up with different solutions, it should be expected that problems would be solved faster than expected without unnecessarily hampering job performance. This would get the job done faster without the usual group meetings which at times eat up man-hour at work or taking up employees’ personal times.

5.       Discover talents at work: One of the major functional areas of HR today is talent discovery and management. Leveraging the social networks at work would leave most HR handlers amazed at the diverse talents that abound within a work group. It could be of great assistant during personnel audit, especially if the HR handler is new to the company. The truth is, if write-ups are carefully analyzed, they often reveal the unknown or hidden personality.

6.       Conduct surveys in the workplace: A carefully handled social network group or page can be used to resolve some HR issues at work. When in this kind of a use, discretion requires that since individual opinion is required, employee contributors’ names may not be required except if the trust is there between the employees and the HRD that their opinions, whatever they may be, wouldn’t be used against them.

7.       Training purposes: As we all know, most of these social networks allow users to send electronic media to friends and associates via their network. Therefore, training videos and audios could be sent to members of a group for training purposes. Equally, there is room for group chatting which can easily be explored to pass information across to members of a group in terms of lectures.

8.       Event Planning: Since in most organizations, the HR and the Admin functions fall within the purview of the HR, the HR handler could leverage the social networks to plan, announce and invite people to the company’s upcoming events. This will undoubtedly save the company some liquid cash which would have been used for media advertisement such as newspaper, radio and Televisions.

These are a few ways the HR could avail itself with the diverse opportunities offered by the social networks.

Caution however needs to be exercised to ensure that the time meant for normal work is not converted by the employees. To ensure this, the company’s phone/internet policy should be effectively used to guide against abuse.

Employees should also be monitored to ensure that certain policies of the company, e.g. sexual harassment, are not infringed upon by group members.