The Role of HR and Intra-Organizational Social Media Use

I have conducted extensive research into the use of Social Media in organizations over the past several months. It started out as a bewildering and massive array of information while I sorted out which 'experts' really are experts. I quickly came to realize that the world of Social Media is like many other professions (such as HR) in that one must learn as much as they can in a 'generalist' sense, then choose an area of specialty.

As a person with an extensive HR/OD background the concept of the use of Social Media in an intra-organizational sense is intriguing. I have also read reams of information on using Social Media for marketing and branding. While my future use of Social Media will be in a new business launch later this year, the idea of using Social Media for HR and OD purposes still captures much of my interest.

One thing that is clear is that many organizations still fear opening the gates to Social Media in their organizations. The key is to treat it in a similar manner that you would any other major business process or program. The organization must first hold discussions on what the implementation of Social Media can do for various aspects of the business. Once that is determined the leaders (including a starring role by HR/OD) must develop a well thought out policy for the organization's Social Media strategy. IBM has one of the best I have seen so far and it is easy to find via Google.

The next step is organization wide communication and education on the strategy, the policy, the roll out and the expectations of all employees regarding the use of Social Media in the organization.

This should sound familiar and if it seems daunting it is a little, however the rewards of a well thought out strategy and roll out will be evident within the first six months.

The benefits of Social Media for improving organizational communication, recruiting and training and development programs are significant if the organization takes time to develop and then follow an effective plan first.

What steps regarding the use of Social Media have been taken in your organization? Have you proposed or initiated any Social Media related projects in your HR/OD role?

Are Organizations Made Up of Talent, Capital or People?

Over the past 8 years there has been a growing trend to using new buzz words in HR. We no longer refer to employees as people, now we call them ‘talent’ or ‘capital’; we refer to executives as the ‘C-Suite’ and attempt to apply a financially oriented return on investment (ROI) to literally everything related to Human Resources.

Is it any wonder that managers, candidates and employees feel disengaged and frustrated with their experience with the people that work in HR? If the people of HR continue this trend of referring to people in this manner the concern is that we move further and further away from what our purported roles are. Whatever happened to facilitating the ability of the management team [people] to attract, retain and develop people? Remember the right people, in the right place, at the right time? I have yet to speak to a non-HR CEO or Manager that refers to the people that work for them as talent or capital-they call them people if referring to groups, or by name if referring to individuals.

Talent, in the form of competencies, skills and abilities come as a complete package, they are attached to people. We can not afford to forget this and by replacing the words people and human with talent and capital what message is being sent? People are far more complex that the set of skills they bring to the workplace and people who work in HR must be conversant with this complexity and understand how it affects the culture of the organization, the engagement of the people who work for the organization, and the future of the organization.

Instead of focusing on catchy new ways to describe what we do, why not focus on simply doing it better?