Social Technology is Not the Enemy of HR

Here’s the understatement of the year…we live in a digital world. This digital world connects everyone who wishes to participate. And if you’re not participating, then you’re not contributing to the progression of society.

For quite sometime, I’ve bashed my own industry for not participating. HR has been a late adopter of innovative technologies that build learning communities and create valuable connections. But it seems the tide is turning, and finally, HR is starting to build a digital prowess beyond pure compliance and benefits applications. Now, it seems, HR is finally starting to see the value of these online learning communities and integrated employee life-cycle solutions.While I commend our industry for its recent progress, we’re still so 2006. Check out this article.

For HR, the digital awareness and knowledge gap still exists and it’s significant. It seems the big digital dilemma now is in employee value vs. productivity loss brought about by social technologies. Social technologies scare HR. Why? Because since the beginning, HR operates under control and comply policy and HR loses control in these social environments. So Facebook, Twitter and other social technologies get turned off for concerned, conservative, traditional companies.

But through these social technologies HR has a tremendous opportunity to become more valuable than your PR department, your marketing team, and even your sales team by making a fundamental shift from control and comply to connect and engage. This shift will elevate HR’s impact by making it more relevant to the bottom line than ever before. Let me explain.

Today, everyone is the media. Every one of your employees has a voice, and that single voice can be carbon copied around the world within seconds – your PR department wishes it had such power. You can choose to use this to your advantage or to your detriment.

Your sales team can work relentlessly to build customer relationships. Your marketing team can spend lots of money building your brand. Your PR team can work tirelessly trying to protect your reputation. And all of their efforts can be destroyed overnight by one disgruntled employee who will share her experience with the world whether you control social technologies or not. HR’s focus should not be on trying to limit the voice of your employees (impossible), but rather, to create engaged employees who love their organization and share it with the world. Social technologies allow engaged employees to carry the company banner to everyone they are connected to.

Your employees are the one’s building brand loyalty with consumers today. Advocate groups aren’t limited to consumers anymore. Now advocate groups include producers (employees) and consumers conversing together in real time. In these social communities of producers and consumers, authentic conversations happen, feedback is quickly shared, and so are solutions. Customer service reaches an all-time high because consumers have a direct line of communication with the producers. When the direct line exists, trust exists and a competitive advantage of speed can be captured because the producer-consumer conversation is happening dynamically. Consumer-producer connections create better companies, better products.

It’s time for our industry to embrace today’s open and collaborative global business environment by enabling engaged producers to participate with consumers through social technologies. Below are a few points to consider.

1. Value: Engage your employees – connect with each employee as an individual by understanding their strengths, their dreams and their unique value.
2. Fit: Connect your employees to your mission – align the dreams and unique skills and experiences of each employee with your mission.
3. Benefit: Build a community of consumer-producer advocates – open social technology tools for engaged employees to build trust with your customers.

Onward!

Tags: community, connecting, consumers, facebook, HR, human, innovation, resources, social, stakeholders, twitter

Let ‘em Run…We Choose to Fight

Yesterday I got the opportunity to speak to a regional conference of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).  We all have been hit profoundly by the economic downturn, but take a moment to think about the people charged with managing and selling space in the shopping centers around the U.S.  Many of these people are also real estate agents who are facing the double whammy of houses and retail space sitting empty.

It wouldn’t be surprising or unexpected that this event would host a pretty sour crowd.  No one would blame them if they collectively waved the white flag and decided to hide their heads until the storm was over.  It wasn’t like that at all.  There was hope in this crowd.  There was a desire to attack this dilemma with energy and creativity.

Leaders who stand out against the crowd, or Champions as we call them, aren’t defeated easily.  Champions know that there will be times when they have to face a stiff head wind.  When other people are running for cover, these leaders are making courageous progress. Champions make the most of the opportunity.

Here are some things to think about when trying to move a team in the midst of the storm.

1. Don’t procrastinate decisions – Too often people are paralyzed by the desire to wait till everything is just right before making a decision.  I hate to break it to you, but even in the best of times things are never just right.  Champions are action oriented.  They move and adjust rather than waiting for the perfect opportunity.
2. Adjust, Adjust, Adjust – Let you team know that change isn’t just inevitable, but rather, constant.  In fact, we should always be in an explorer’s mindset, looking for opportunities to make the process better.  A team that expects change is agile.  That makes them comfortable in situations that would make lesser teams falter.
3. Expect opposition and persevere anyway – Complaining and neigh-saying are easy to do.  Understand that the people you talk to can’t see the road ahead like you do.  Just like it took time for you to think through your situation and develop a vision, it will take time for others to see your vision as clearly as you do.  Understand that when ideas are young, they are fragile.  Don’t let a great idea die because people don’t understand it immediately.

The men and women who were at this conference were the first to feel the icy blast of the current downturn, I expect them to be the first to experience the warm breezes of an economic turnaround.  Onward!

Tags: centers, champion, ICSC, meeting, oklahoma, organizational, shopping, tulsa