WHY SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T GOING AWAY & WHY HR MUST GET ONBOARD
In the last post, I talked about how HR needs to be where the people are…and these days, that is in the social media spaces – online communities, etc.
“But WHHHHYYYY?” ask all the non-techy HR people.
Here are 3 Key Reasons Why:
1. MASSIVE CULTURE CHANGE. Unlike other innovations that are driven by corporate desires for efficiency, productivity, etc, social media is being driven by a CULTURE CHANGE. Everyone you want to hire under the age of 30 from here on out will LIVE & BREATHE social media. Social media will be how they think, how they interact, how they DO BUSINESS.
Gen Y and Beyond: The new generations of employees
2. ACTIVE RECRUITMENT REQUIRED! New generations of employees are not going to comb the newspaper want-ads for jobs. (Heck, they don’t even watch TV anymore – they get TV content via the internet! Hulu, anyone?) They are online. If you want the best people in your company (and don’t you?) then you have to ACTIVELY RECRUIT THEM…and that means being where the new potential employees are: online communities, online social spaces. Also, they have different values and priorities than previosu generations of employees.
This generation does NOT live to work – they work to LIVE. And they view authority differently: they don’t care if you’re older and wiser, hey, they are young and energetic and smart. Again, if you want to reach them, you are going to have to be WHERE THEY ARE and be enticing…which brings me to point #3…
3. COMPLEX WORK ENVIRONS MEANS JOB FIT IS KEY! So, the new stat is that only 35% of people work in a traditonal office for the traditional 9-5 job anymore. The other 65% either work from home, or work partly from home, partly on the road and maybe partly in the office. And there ain’t no way you, as HR, are going to shove all of those people back into a traditional setting. So, you might as well accept it and work with it.
Complexity means that more than ever, you must get the RIGHT PERSON for the job to keep your turnover low and your productivity hight. To get the right person means ACTIVE recruiting in the right places. Being in the right places means that you are, yep, ENGAGED IN SOCIAL MEDIA RECRUITING!
Here are the benefits to you:
FLEXIBILITY – Being engaged in social media spaces give you flexibility with where and how you actively recruit.
GREAT FIT – Being the the social media spaces where the potentially great employees hang out means you have a statistically better chance of finding those people
RETENTION & PRODUCTIVY – It stands to reason that if you have a good fit, your retention rates and productivity will be better than if you don’t have a good employee-to-job fit. Both of these go directly to the company’s bottom line – and makes your boss and your CEO VERY HAPPY PEOPLE.
Life is Messy - Use Your Words by Adrienne Corn 