Post on 26-Mar-2015
Social Media…and employment
Dr Simon Haslam
FMR Research Ltd
Our research
• Four lines of enquiry
- checking up on/vetting employees
- as a recruitment medium
- impact on organisation’s rules/policies
- as a route to community cohesion
• Over 70 publications, 12 interviews
• February to April 2011
‘Why’ – 1 It’s here!
28m UK users
13% of UK
85% UK online, of which 64% have their own profile and 43% post messages/chat
‘Why’ – 2 Game changer
‘Why’ – 3 fashion/adoption
Blogs (<2)
Wikis (2-5)
Microblogging (2-5)
Mobile social networks (2-5)
Social profiles (2-5)
Social analytics (2-5)
Crowd sourcing (2-5)
Social media 2010
‘Why’ – 4 Culture
Apollo Role Athena TaskTask
PowerZeus Dionysus Support
‘Why’ – Generations
• Matures (1945+)
• Baby boomers (1946-1964)
• Generation X (1965-1979)*• Generation Y (1980 – 2000)
‘Why’ – 5 ethics
• Who’s ethics?
- HR, research, media/journalism
• Old ethical paradigms “grey areas”
- public/private distinction
- online indefinability/validation
• ‘Contextualised Ethics’
For checking up/vetting…
• Not equal opportunities (TUC)
• Open to discrimination charges
• If ‘supplementing’ a search
- screen specifically, openly + uniformly
- neutral party does search
- do not ‘friend’
- be able to explain hire/non-hire (counsel)
- allow candidate to explain
- later in the process
Vetting… happens
• 45% of hiring professionals used social media (2009) – 29% Facebook, 26% LinkedIn, 21% Myspace, 11% blogs, 7% followed on Twitter
• Candidates disregarded
- 53% provocative/inappropriate content
- 44% posts about drinking and/or drugs
- 35% bad mouthed
- 29% poor coms skills
- 24% lied about qualifications
- 20% shared confidential info
• LinkedIn robust? (recommendations, quality, role dependent)
• Got the right person? (Facebook especially)
• Value of social media is role specific – e.g. digital new media, hospitality
Checking up on your staff
• No-one admitted to doing it
• Have a Social Media policy…
… and make it clear
For recruitment, increasingly• LinkedIn, 3m graduates, 250k sign/month
• MI6 (Facebook, 2008)
• Saatchi and Saatchi (summer scholarship 2011)
• T-mobile (Facebook, 300 grads for 42 positions)
• Royal Opera House (YouTube, non-performing roles)
• Executive recruiter (job alerts, RSS feed)
• Outsourcer (blogging, targeting linguists)
• LinkedIn Recruiter – service offer
A recruitment model
1. Source/communicate with talent online
2. ‘Talent pipelining’ – building up a community by adding people to the Careers group on LinkedIn
3. Recruitment
(mobile phone company, now with 5,000 people in the Careers group)
NB Online means Smartphone compliant
Impact on policies“… a change in attitude and confidence… from the ‘stop and block’ mentality that many businesses adopted in previous years to an appreciation that Web 2.0 is good for business and should be implemented more fully.” (2010)
• 29% of orgs have no policies (higher in private sector/SMEs, 75% of these trusted employees though 81% restricted the use of at least one Web 2.0 tool - concerns
• The new ‘Generation Standby’
Ask yourself…
Are you happy for your employees to set up a LinkedIn account without any guidance?
Is it ok for employees to mention they work for your organisation on their personal Twitter account?
What are you happy that your employees say about customers/clients on Facebook?
US Army – policy for Twitter on the frontline
Social media policy?1. Clear company philosophy
2. Definition of social media/networking
3. Disclosing oneself as an employee
4. Recommending others
5. Referring to clients and partners
6. Proprietary and confidential information
7. Terms of service
8. Copyright and legal issues
9. Productivity impact
10.Disciplinary action
Practical guidance Have a policy… but accept it might constrain Build the policy into induction/staff briefing If you have designated employees, others
have the usernames and passwords More than one person knows how to do the
uploading and backroom functions (blogs) Have a system to monitor what is said about
you online (e.g. Google Alerts, Tweetdeck) Equip the ‘monitorer’ to react/deal with Be prepared for negative/critical comments Avoid online fights
Towards company cohesion• Upscaling and working pattern trends
cause disconnection
• BT, McDonalds, O2, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Pfizer, KPMG, Westminster CC (HP
‘Watercooler’, 3,000 active, voluntary English, engineering or marketing)
• Helping HR facilitate the employee voice
• Helping HR deliver the development agenda (YouTube, forums, blogs, webinars)
• Performance – the strength of weak ties (Granovetter)
• 89% of 700 respondents have a system in place (USA data, 2010)
• Only 10% ‘successful’
• Most used – online directory (22% ‘heavy)
• 33% - no single sign-on for internal systems
• 39% - no email integration with internal social networks
• 8% (only) approach it by coordinated, multi-discipline team
• 71% of market – Microsoft SharePoint
• Many moving to Facebook but “platform is a nightmare” in this context. And ‘brand fit?’
• Be clear/serious – or its another channel for…
For us, as employees
• Understand the concept of personal branding and executive presence…
… and how social media relate to this.
• Accept the direction of flow.
• Take the next step
Executive Presence ModelProfessional
image
Social skills
Inspirational presenter
Future orientation
Corporate view
Clarity
Stories
Politically aware
Courage
Self belief
State management
Passion© DTC Ltd
Executive Presence ModelProfessional
image
Social skills
Inspirational presenter
Future orientation
Corporate view
Clarity
Stories
Politically aware
Courage
Self belief
State management
Passion© DTC Ltd
For ‘employability’ bodies• Encourage the understanding of personal
branding/presence and the role of social media in this (Facebook and employer behaviour)
• Support social media skills development – LinkedIn, Twitter
• Trial YouTube as promotional channel for candidates
• Questions – capability (technically and infrastructure) and permission?
Next steps
Reflect and digest – copies of slide deck and summary paper of case studies on www.learningorganisation.com
Employer perspective
• Develop a Social Media Policy v+1 (social media audit, third party help)
• Develop practice next step
Employee perspective
• Consider personal branding
• Take a social media next step