The Social Media Buzz

In HR, we seem to like talking about broad based topics that are looming as difficulties in our profession. We talk about the problem of employee engagement and needing to be employers of choice. We talk about aging of the workforce and the looming crises as Baby Boomers retire. We talk about the different generations at work and how complicated it is to make everyone happy. The boogie man under the bed, and many other bad things.

They are all very real topics but I'm always curious as to what, if anything, we actually do to deal with the issues. For instance, everyone is talking about Social Media right now. But do organizations see that social media could help to create different relationships with their employees? Could help engage the younger generations? Could help to get work done?

I recently participated in a Canadian survey regarding the current use of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, wikis, etc. in the workplace. The results are in - 71% of employers participating have full on restrictions on using the internet at work, and only 17% use some type of social media to communicate with their employees. Email is still by far the number one way for communicating in the workplace. Seems like there is lots of talk but no action.

If your organization is like many, we all seem to be doing more with less (people I mean). We have a majority of employees who sit somewhere in the two youngest generations in the workforce. We are always looking for ways to communicate with our people. Get them engaged. Help them feel fulfilled at work. Empower them. Ultimately have them produce more output (whatever that is).

Perhaps now is the time to move beyond email and meetings and move to instant messaging with team mates across the country, social networks of co-workers interested in solving common work problems, and access to information that will help people be creative and inspired.

The survey shows that organizations are very slow to adopt social media as a legitimate way to get work done. I wonder how long it will take before the advantages are seen to out weigh the disadvantages? Before we stop talking and start acting.