Social Media: The Forgotten Employees

There is a lot of chatter in the Human Resources (HR) world on ways to better utilize social media as a recruiting tool. HR social media (SM) recruitment may in the near future include applications we now consider unconventional such as Tinder. It won’t be long before your recruiters are swiping left and right.

Amazonian Tinder

The fact is many companies primarily use social media to either engage with current and potential customers, or appeal to jobseekers. If you observe your company’s social media activity, you will find that if it posts are not about an upcoming product or service, chances are they are about the #joboftheday.

Conversely, for all the talk about employee engagement, only an occasional nod is extended to current employees in companies' social media pages.

You will find that in observing your own company, nods to employees corresponds to some employee or professional appreciation day on the calendar. This is analogous to saying I love you to my partner only on valentine’s day and on our anniversary. Though HR has never been known for spontaneity, it certainly can work on exhibiting more love to employees.

It is true that HR has other ways to engage employees. Examples include internal surveys, quarterly or annual company events, emails from a loquacious executive, internal contests, and the immortal uninformative company newsletter. Except for the internal survey, all the other formats above are ways to talk at employees instead of engaging people in conversation. Besides, the dismal response rates of surveys raise suspicion of its efficacy as an engagement tool.

Increased employee engagement results in lower turnover, stronger ties between worker and company, more productivity, and boosts company performance.

Common sense tells us to meet our customers where they are. In observing Human Resources use of social media as a recruiting tool, common sense in addition says to go where jobseekers are, to go to the social media sphere.

However, we deviate from common sense in engaging current employees. Yes, they are still on social media even when on the clock. And you will be glad to know that it is good for your bottom line. 
In viewing current employees as customers, HR may be able to implement a crowd-sourcing strategy to improve engagement. In their argument for faster innovation, Li and Bernoff posit two reasons that customer engagement in innovation can lead to quicker innovation (182). First, who knows your products better than the people that use it, they might be aware of vital improvements your product team has overlooked. Second, there is the potential for continuous improvement, in conversing with customers you can bounce ideas of each other, plus get your questions answered quickly. 

When you are tapped into the customer community, you get feedback quickly, and once you've processed it, you can go back and ask the next question (183).

Below are some common-sense tips to help you better engage with your employees on social media. 

Tips on Engaging Employees on Social Media:

First, just wish them a good morning and a safe commute. A lot of organizations claim they are starved for content to post on their social media pages. You are relaying to your people that you woke up this morning and they were on your mind. In fact, they are on your mind everyday. You are grateful to have them in your life. 

In this simple gesture, you have achieved two things. First you have created new content, may be you can include a story you found of interest which relates to your business for your staff to read as they are getting settled in during that first hour in which nothing seems to be done other than drinking coffee and catching up. Second, you have found a way to continuously engage with your employees. 

Second, wish everyone good evening at the end of the day and thank them for all their labor towards your mission. Maybe include a link to your mission here.

Third, on Fridays, compose a special post to thank everyone for their work. And maybe share a cute video to hint to them it’s time to recharge.

Fourth, Happy birthday! If your employees are in your network, extend your wishes that they have a happy birthday. Everyone else is wishing them happy birthday, why not you? What kind of a friend are you? For example, if it is Susan's birthday, you may compose the following post: Sue, happy birthday from team @companyname, extending our #love to our #queen.

Sixth, how about employee recognition. Your SM pages are the best spaces to spotlight superstar performances. Plus, you don't have to wait until the end of the month or at year-end performance reviews to recognize someone who has gone above and beyond for you. With social media, you can share your gratitude instantaneously. Don’t hold back. Write sincerely. But please avoid designing a template to reuse again. Each recognition must be unique. I bet this technique would indirectly draw job seekers to your company as well. I will leave it up to you to speculate why that might be.    

Lastly, and this is where you utilize the relationship you have built in your prior engagements really come to benefit you. Crowdsource event planning. Instead of the traditional method of delegating a team (most likely your HR team) to plan employee appreciation events, reach out to your employees for suggestions. The suggestion with the most likes is the winner! This grows your event planning team and provides relief for HR. Avoid the pitfall of giving a list of suggestions to choose from. Since you reserved control in the items to be voted on, your list will be interpreted as an insincere attempt at democratization and empowerment. It will certainly limit participation. You really want to utilize the creativity of your team, right? Give them true democracy.

On crowdsourcing, Li and Bernoff say that it is only good for a moment engagement with the groundswell (190) and that it does not "move the company in a positive direction". I disagree in so far as we are considering internal customers. By following the format above or a similarly designed format and building on it, you can transform your the ways in which you engage your internal stakeholders. You have found a way to continuously engage with your internal customers and to involve them in an event in which they are at the center of but have previously been left out of in its design.

However, I argue that this should be the start of your long-term commitment to innovating employee engagement at your company. Li and Bernoff have discuss others ways to engage employees such as wikis such Intelpedia (241). Regardless of the technology used, the foundation of all mutually beneficial relationships are just that, the relationships you build. 

Companies continue to search for ways to improve their interaction with their customers and their appeals to jobseekers on social media. However, companies have made little effort to connect with their employees and engage them on social media. An inclusive social media strategy which includes employee engagement as a primary objective can increase employee morale, productivity, and retention.

What are your suggestions on ways companies can engage with employees on social media?