Growing Importance of Social Media in Business & Human Resource Management!!!

1. NAME: HITESH JAIN
STUDENT ID (UBS):1326
PROGRAMME: Masters of Business Administration (AICTE)
ASSIGNMENT TITLE: ‘HR with Social Media’
Table of Contents:
SR NO. TOPIC
1 Introduction of Report
2 Key Themes
3 Social Media and It’s Influence
4 Summary

2. Introduction
Increasing exponentially in usage and influence, a multitude of social media offerings can be
leveraged by companies to further extend both their external brand awareness and the internal
strength of the corporate culture. Social media offers companies, particularly human resource
departments, and many opportunities to reach out, assist and guide employees.
One out of every nine people in the world use Facebook, with an estimated 700 billion minutes
being spent every month on this application, it is interesting to note that over 2.5 million
organizations have a Facebook presence in addition to their corporate websites. An estimated
250 million people access social media sites through their mobile devices. The impact that
social media has on the daily lives of people is beyond “like” on Facebook or “re-tweet” on
Twitter. Organizations are feeling the need to be present on not just one social media platform,
however, on ensuring that they are “available and listening” to all at all times. Commenting on
the role of social media in an interview to the Harvard Business Review, Howard Schultz (CEO –
Starbucks) mentioned –“….Whether you are creating a brand, building one, or running a big
one, you’d better understand social media, because there is a seismic shift in how people are
gaining access to information and, as a result, how they are behaving.”
Social media is well-established as a consumer and brand oriented set of tools. Increasingly,
social media is being offered as an innovative solution for internal effectiveness. When strategy
and governance are integrated with social media tools, they can positively impact your
organization. An organization that thoughtfully embraces social media can realize opportunities
across four areas:
 Collaboration: Constant, transparent, and effective collaboration with employees,
candidates, customers, and suppliers
 Talent management: Top performance delivered through robust and real-time training,
development, and support
 Administration: Employee-centric Human Resources (HR) operations, regardless of
where employees are in the world or organization hierarchy
 Employee engagement: Single, unified culture with engaged employees driving business
success
In 2013, organizations finally began in earnest to integrate social technologies into recruitment,
development and engagement practices. In 2014, this social integration will become the status
quo.
The digital immigrants have now caught up to the digital natives – we are now all digital
citizens. The fastest growing demographic on Google+ is 45-54 and on Twitter it is 55-64!
And it’s a good thing that baby boomers and other older generations have embraced these
tools, because using social media inside companies will be increasingly important in 2014 and
beyond.

3. The upcoming year will also see a new phase of what I call “the consumerization of HR,”
wherein employees not only demand to bring their own devices to work, but also want to use
these mobile devices to change the way they work with peers, communicate with their
manager and even interact with the HR department.

4. KEY THEMES
According to PwC’s global CEO Study, 66 percent of CEOs say that the absence of necessary
skills is their biggest talent challenge. Eighty-three percent say they’re working to change their
recruiting strategies to address that fact.
Meanwhile, a host of big data recruiting firms is set to benefit from the newly emphasized value
being placed on recruiting. These firms tout that they can find new talent before the
prospective employees even know they are in the job market. Companies analyze not just a job
candidate’s LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed and Facebook postings, but also their activity on
specialty sites specific to their professions, such as the open-source community forum. This
approach to recruitment is creating a new technical world order where job applicants are
found and evaluated by their merits and contributions, rather than by how well they sell
themselves in an interview.
Getting this head start on head hunting is crucial as corporations’ search for top candidates
becomes ever more competitive. The goal: finding talent invisible on widely popular social
platforms before your competitor does.
According to a study of Fortune 500 companies conducted by CareerBuilder, 39% of the US
population uses tablet devices. A recent survey conducted byGlassdoor.com even found that 43
percent of job candidates’ research their prospective employer and read the job description on
their mobile device just 15 minutes prior to their interviews. And yet, only 20 percent
of Fortune 500companies have a mobile-optimized career site.
The food-services corporation Sodexo, the 20th
-largest employer in the U.S., got a head start in
that process in early 2012, when it developed both a mobile-optimized career site and a
smartphone app to pull together all the information about the company’s recruiting efforts into
one easy-for-Millennials-to-access place. Prospective employees could visit the mobile app to
search and apply for jobs, join a talent community, receive job alerts, and get an insider’s view
about what it’s like to work for Sodexo.
The results according to Arie Ball, VP Talent Acquisition at Sodexo, 17 percent of job traffic from
potential new hires now comes from the mobile app versus just 2 percent of mobile traffic in
early 2012. In the first year, mobile app downloads totaled 15,000, leading to over 2,000 new
job candidates and 141 actual new hires, all while saving the company $300,000 in job board
postings.
Organizations need to keep pace with the way prospective employees live their lives, and being
able to access a mobile app in the job search process will become standard in 2014.
Over 60 percent of the Western world’s population plays video games and companies are
taking note of the huge numbers of future prospective employees who love to play Angry
Birds, Fruit Ninja, Candy Crush, and World of War craft.

5. Gamification in the business context is taking the essence of games—attributes like puzzles,
play, transparency, design and competition—and applying them to a range of real-world
processes inside an organization, from new hire on-boarding, to learning & development, and
health & wellness.
Using Gamification to develop leaders, and it is already seeing results. Company’s “Ignite
Leadership” Game, aligned with its overall employee engagement framework, and was created
to develop five key skills for leaders: negotiation, communication, time management, change
management and problem solving.
Gamification in the workplace is not just about using badges, mission and leaderboards.
Instead, the strategy about truly understands who you are trying to engage, what motivates
them, and how gamification can change the way they work, communicate and innovate with
peers and customers.
The annual performance review is dead. When 750 senior level HR professionals were recently
asked to grade their current performance management system, 60% gave it a grade of C or
below, according to World At Work.
The Check-In –is an informal system of real-time feedback, which has no forms to fill out or
submit to HR. Instead, managers are trained in how to conduct a check-in and how to focus the
conversation on key goals, objectives, development and strategies for improvement and how to
leverage the wisdom of the crowds to create a holistic view of one’s performance. And most
importantly, employees are evaluated on the basis of what they achieved against their own
goals, rather than how they compare to their peers.
The goal here is to make key HR processes more transparent, leverage the wisdom of the
crowds and to democratize the flow of information throughout the organization.
At Montefiore Hospital, which has nearly 50 primary care locations throughout the New York
metropolitan area, social learning was introduced in order to build a sense of community and
connection among employees, while creating a shared mental model of leadership. As yourself:
are you thinking of social learning as another delivery mode rather than a new way of working
and communicating.
The buzz about MOOCs (Massive, Open, and Online Courses) has focused on the disruption
they will bring to institutions of higher education. But far from being limited to that sphere,
MOOCs most important legacy may in fact be its impact on the world of corporate training – a
$150 billion industry.
Klout, which calls itself “the SAT score for business professionals,” measures each user’s online
“influence.” In the year ahead, the focus will also be on Klout for Business.

6. Social Media and its Influence
Social media participation is an essential tool in networking with professional contacts, making
new contacts, recruiting employees, and keeping in touch with the world. If you’re not
participating in the top social media and networking sites, the world is leaving you behind.
HR pros are using social media, nearly 83% of the 376 surveyed to stay current on industry
trends and keep up to date with their industry colleagues. Social media allows you access to
industry experts and practitioners who are writing, talking, and dealing with the same issues
that other HR folks are dealing with every day. Instead of waiting for a professional publication
or the Harvard Business Review to spotlight a corporate thought leader, industry professionals
can learn better, faster, and from their peer’s perspective.
Another interesting finding is the use of social media to learn about human resource vendors
and service providers. Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed are using social media to learn
about HR related products and services. These testimonials and engagements with social
media go beyond the brochure once again either with the end user, industry expert, or HR

7. vendor. All the more reason it’s important for HR service providers to be using social media to
establish relationships, answer questions, and monitor the industry back channel.

8. Average social media consumption is in excess of 7.5 hours a week. Social media beat out
traditional news publications like CNN and the Wall Street Journal in addition to HR vendor and
service provider generated white papers and webcast materials furthering supporting my
earlier statement of the importance of service providers to establish relationships on social
media platforms and with online influencers. Bottom line is people trust people they know
either in person or online. Social media allows for a more personal connection with products,
peers, and friends.
Eighty-six percent of those surveyed currently own a mobile device. Smartphones like the
Blackberry, Android, and iPhones have fueled the increase in popularity of the telecommuting
workforce and have helped make the case for the he importance of engagement and the rise of
the smartphone. So it’s not surprising that SHRM launched their Annual Conference
Smartphone and iPad app. Companies like Lumesse and O.C. Tanner have released apps in the
few weeks specifically targeting the human resource industry which sounds like a smart move
considering almost 34% of HR Toolbox survey respondents planned on purchasing a new
smartphone in the next six months.
Surveys like these that are extremely powerful in making the case for social media not just
within your human resource or recruiting department but also your entire company. As HR
begins to understand the benefits and importance that social media brings to the user, it’s safe
to say that companies will continue to adopt more aggressive corporate social media
integration strategies because of HR’s involvement with senior leaders, employee law, and the
employee policy and procedure process.

9. Social HR has learned our lesson and developed with expert guidance four key strategies for
combining human resources and Social Media effectively.
Part of Social HR’s role is to mitigate legal risks for our clients, another very large component is
to help support and cultivate your corporate culture and create a productive and profitable
working environment. As Social Media becomes more defined in the business world, there
increasingly will be a significant opportunity to leverage this powerful medium in many aspects
of your business.
1. Using Social Media to Expand Networks and Increase Access
Regardless of our profession, we now know using Social Media allows us to expand our
networks on several different levels. Human resources are no exception to this new reality.
Having the ability to interact with colleagues around the country about the challenges facing HR
professionals results in the ability to adopt the latest innovations and learn about the latest
mistakes in order not to repeat them. By expanding our networks, we increase our access to
the latest information and cutting edge tools.
2. Quantify the Productivity and Value of Social Media
Many of us remember when using the Internet at work became popular. We must understand
which Social Media tools and strategies will give us a greater bang for the buck. Just because
many of these tools are free or low-cost doesn’t mean they’re worth investing time and effort
in. That lack of cost makes it easy to dive into Social Media without considering what you want
to get out of it.
It is essential to create value not only for the business, but also for the internal workforce and
the industry. When human resources include employee involvement in corporate Social Media
strategy, it also means working with senior leadership to create a culture that supports the
change. While using Social Media tools can provide convenience, establishing appropriate
metrics to measure results is essential. Simply having a Facebook page or a Twitter feed is not
enough. Social Media needs to be quantified in order to be effective.
3. Never Truly Disconnected As Expectations Evolve
Before Facebook and iPhones, it was understood that people weren’t available all the time.
Even though companies now try to encourage “disconnect” time, it has become essential for
organizations to set expectations and manage those expectations where using Social Media is
concerned. This not only applies to employees using Social Media but to customer service.
To understand customer demographics and needs, we can use Social Media to find business
solutions faster and from a wider variety of sources. It also means that a business can respond
to the needs of their customer faster as well. In the modern world, the truth is that we are
never 100% disconnected from our work and these new expectations and reality continue to
evolve as technology changes.

10. The Positive Impact of Social Media
4. Do Not Be Afraid — Support Innovation
There is tremendous potential in Social Media for collaboration and the sharing of real-time
ideas or solutions with team members. The application of private enterprise tools can be used
for internal conferences or team development and meetings. We can use Twitter to keep up
with industry conferences, information and articles. Facebook and blogging tools can be used to
collaborate and inform employees and clients about practices and methodologies of your
business.
In order to maximize your outreach efforts, here are 10 best practices for using social media in
Human Resources:
Develop a Social Media Policy
Educate & Train
Build Employee Loyalty & Corporate Culture
Corporate Branding
Recruiting
Open Enrollment & Benefit Options
Health & Wellness Promotion
Connect Employees to Online Resources
Solicit Feedback & Monitor Conversations
Research & Networking Opportunities

11. SUMMARY
Like our colleagues in marketing and public relations, we are learning what Social Media tools
are available and how they can be leveraged in the workplace. Many of the rules regarding
what works have yet to be written or tested. One thing is certain: Social HR understands that
the growth of Social Media is not going to stop, and we believe our clients need to understand
this simple reality as well. The challenge is integrating a cohesive, relevant and effective
strategy at every level of an organization, both at Social HR and for our client companies. By
supporting innovation and not being afraid of change, you can stay a step ahead of the curve
and make Social Media an ally as opposed to an ignorant enemy.
It’s clear that social media tools are transforming the way we work … and will continue to do so
in ways we can only imagine. It is critical for Human Resource professionals to understand what
these tools are used for and assess the risks and opportunities they may present to an
organization. Social media is redefining how companies innovate by connecting people and
ideas in ways that have previously not been explored. Organizations now have the ability to
utilize knowledge from external audiences around the globe that they could never reach
before.
It is changing the way we do business today. Additional benefits include the ability to enhance
your public image, improve interactions with customers, and promote employee engagement.
But it is not without internal and external risk.
Key external forces:
• Social media technologies are pervasive and are constantly evolving
• Access to enormous amounts of information, no matter where you are
• Workforce expects flexibility, diversity, mobility, transparency
• Multigenerational workforce has a wide range of skills, expectations, loyalty
• Increased privacy and compliance concerns
Considerations to fully embrace social media:
• Comprehensive governance strategy to consistently manage the risks
• Team with the right skills to succeed in this environment
• Holistic internal strategy that complements the broader organizational approach
Opportunity for positive impact:

12. • Employee engagement and employee communication can be accelerated with social media
• Social media is transforming the entire recruiting process, and the candidate/company
relationship
• Learning is an enormous opportunity for leveraging social media
• Social media has the potential to transform talent management and performance
management
• HR service delivery can be improved through emerging technologies
In summary, identifying an HR-friendly platform that integrates with your everyday efforts to
Promote corporate messaging is the initial step in developing your social media strategy. All
social media accounts should reflect your corporate brand and align with the company’s overall
goals.
In order to avoid pitfalls when working within HR-friendly platforms, a social media policy that
Consists of by-the-book procedures and around-the-clock monitoring is essential. Additionally,
Maintaining a positive social media presence will require regularly scheduled posts that include
valuable information and engaging material, keeping you connected with your audience.
Thus report offers an overview of both the vitality of social media as a resource and
recommendations for how companies can effectively implement an internal social media
strategy. Included are several best practice suggestions that HR departments can incorporate
within a larger social media plan. Effective use of social media can allow HR to not only keep
employees better informed about company activities, but also build corporate loyalty and
provide a venue for employees to offer feedback.