How does a typical Gen Y employee work today? There are several tabs open on the laptop. You have the office e-mail to attend to at work, your Facebook homepage to make sure you know what your friends are up to and an e-commerce website on the third tab to not miss out on the latest deals. If this isn’t enough, you are attending to your WhatsApp notifications and replying to what your colleagues have written on the Intranet private chat facility (internal communications).
This gives us a clear picture of the impact that the digital space has in our daily lives at work and beyond. HR Professionals have understood the potential that social media has in the HR Space. Let’s look at five ways in which its value has been harnessed.
Internal Communications Campaigns
Using the Intranet facility or even social networking sites, companies are using these as a medium to reach out to their employees. With social media, employees can be kept in the loop as it eliminates physical barriers and distances.
Online Platforms
Using the social media platform, there are HR consultants from across the globe that come together and discuss contemporary issues that are relevant to them. Be it webinars or online discussions, there are innovative measures that bring these bright minds together.
Recruitment
There are several job portals that use social media as a cost effective measure to reach out to several potential candidates in one go.
Klout Score
A klout score is a score that indicates how active an individual is on social media. Today, there are organizations that look at the social media presence of their potential candidates. Whether organizations should make hiring decisions on this basis is highly debatable.
Social Media Policy
HR Professionals assert the importance of having a social media policy during the induction process of employees. Social media has the power to put a company’s reputation at stake as it involves a two-way communication process. Thus, to help maintain code of conduct, employees are given guidelines to ensure their productivity at work doesn’t get hampered and to maintain the image of the organization.
Social media has an integral role to play in the HR Space. With these benefits, come some challenges as well. Considering how pervasive the digital world can be, drawing a boundary between one’s personal and professional life has become difficult. Thus, to ensure social media isn’t misused, organization must foresee the ethical and legal risks that they might encounter and deal with them effectively.
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