almost everybody is doing it.
almost everybody is doing it every. single. day. but not at work. what? why? huh?
why is the huge majority of our workforce totally into social media in their home life but not at work?
well, for starters, i think that there is a MASSIVE issue in terms of the perception of social media in business.
i still hear lots of business leaders talk about social media as being something external. it’s part of marketing and communication methods on a b2c and b2b level. now i’m not dissing this fact. it’s true: any business worth its salt HAS to be on board with social as a channel and, although it took a lot of time, leaders on the whole are on board with that now.
but the problem comes when you start talking about social being part of the internal business world. it’s taken an awfully long time for social media to become viewed as vital to b2c and b2b communications but now it’s established there, people need to start looking at what it can do internally.
getting social media cranking inside the organisation should be high on everyone’s list. and it’s something that should be acted upon NOW!
as every business out there comes to grips with the changing demographic within the org (gen Y becoming managers, younger staff coming on board, increasingly transient workforce, demand from employees for flexible work etc) embracing social media can be an incredible place to reap some big benefits.
what does social media within the workplace offer though?
well, here’s a short list some of the benefits that i can see from a WELL EXECUTED social enterprise deployment:
- improved collaboration
- increased recognition
- better problem solving
- empowerment of individual employees
- breaking down silos
- building a stronger sense of community
- improved employee engagement
- increased productivity
- improved learning and sharing of knowledge
- increased efficiency
maybe I’ll expand on those points in another post later this week but for now, my key point here is: GET SOCIAL. DO IT NOW!
but it aint just as simple as making an internal social channel available to staff. you have to actually drive adoption and ensure that the business gets value (although some argue about driving adoption, like in this post, i feel it’s key to success). you need to educate staff. you have to show them the way. show them the benefits. the capabilities. the VALUE to them as individuals and as a team.
during one of the panel discussions at Cloudforce 2012 here in Sydney a few weeks back i got to ask Carlos Mora of salesforce what the key steps to a successful deployment of social within the enterprise are. he gave 3 very clear and useful steps that i will share right now:
- executive sponsorship: you have to have a senior exec who really supports social and backs it up with action.
- internal comms plan: you need to actually plan to communicate the value to the employees and communicate how to get the best from it.
- MUST be part of existing business processes: don’t treat it as an ‘extra’ but instead get showing the benefits straight away by integrating it into existing workflow e.g. set up a group for a project team and say ‘every document relating to this project is to be filed here, edited here, feedback collated here. not one document related to this project is to be emailed…etc’
for more reading about driving adoption of social enterprise, here are just a few posts that i found interesting and useful – hopefully you will find them interesting places to start too:
how to drive social adoption across the business - Yammer
leaders should rethink their 19th and 20th century models of learning and leadership - Dan Pontefract
When Should Management Push Enterprise 2.0 Adoption? - spigit
the growing importance of social business – social business news
Improving collaboration, breaking down silos, and innovating better. What does that all mean? - @Greg2dot0
Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Strategies - allyis
Why don’t companies what this to start with? Because they are worried about losing control and what they might hear from their employees. The culture needs to be right. Management has to accept that employees will from time to time take genuine issue with what the company is doing, not sit passively back and take what is given. Most companies struggle with this, yet it is a key indication of an engaged employee base. At IBM it was largely grass-roots driven and created in the early days. Only after several years did the business start to take notice and bring about wider adoption.
You may also be interested in the latest CEO study which highlights the benefits internally and externally that even CEOs are starting to see with social.. www-935.ibm.com/services/us/en/c-suite/ceostudy2012/
great comment Karl. totally agree with your comment “Why don’t companies want this to start with? Because they are worried about losing control and what they might hear from their employees. The culture needs to be right.”
yes indeed the culture needs to be right. however, any company where this is a concern should have the balls to encourage use of internal social media to analyse the culture and engagement levels properly and in real time. after all, you can’t fix a problem until you know how bad it really is. otherwise, you will just be chipping away at things and not really dealing with the issues.
Culture does take a long time to change.
Probably better to at least try and sort out the issues first through other methods. Otherwise it can lead to a backlash against social tools. First line managers especially need to have training and guidance on how to deal with a shift in power. Guidelines also need to be created so that employees understand their responsibilities, not just the possibilities. If an organisation is values led it can happen quickly but I know of far too many orgnisations where management manages through fear, uncertainty and doubt. They also tend to suffer from poor communications to start with. Not to mention a HR policy which is made up as they go along.
We’re certainly not perfect at IBM but we do have long established values and HR policies for every situation. The HR side certainly reminds me of working in local government for the level of completeness.
Jumping head long into a half arsed social experiment (or lord forbid a pilot) could create deeper problems. One example I’ve seen is where a select group of people were allowed to blog, hand picked by management. This simply led to people not engaging with the “teachers pet’s” that got selected and widened the trust gap.
Unless management is so disconnected from their employees to be totally unaware of the issues within their business they will have a good idea where to start to make changes. Sometimes though the problem with these people is that that is just how they think companies should be run.
Going back to your original point, businesses do need to have a strategy in place to start the journey. That is without doubt.
GREAT STUFF! Thanks Karl. Really interesting to hear more about the importance of leadership engaging with culture properly and HR being taken seriously as a truly vital cog in the wheel.
Sadly we see too many examples of HR being undervalued and leaders thinking they are in charge because they and they alone know how to ‘do it right’!
It’s one big damn puzzler to me why so many businesses/leaders STILL don’t give HR and effective communication the effort and respect deserved.
Excellent article and comments, thanks for sharing guys.
I’d suggest that it isn’t necessarily the culture of fear of losing control but the fear that there will be no immediate or short term business value.