Every company has two distinct brands, its employer brand and its consumer brand. With the rise of social networking, your company, how you run it and your culture has become a fishbowl — everything you do is on display for all to see. And like it or not, your employees have an abundance of channels for broadcasting their opinions — both negative and positive.

Company branding and employer branding aren’t the same, but they intersect to fuel each other. Many of the same characteristics that motivate consumers also motivate job seekers. Successful companies foster a culture where employees not only like where they work but also believe in the products and solutions they support. Understanding what distinguishes your employer brand and how it may affect attracting and retaining employees is an essential component to being an employer of choice. It also requires an awareness of changing workplace considerations from the employees’ perspectives to formulate a value proposition to employees that clearly answers the age-old question, “What’s in it for me?”

The employer brand is comprised of a myriad of factors that contribute to how your employees learn, plan and do their work and personal lives. These include everything from the obvious (such as compensation and benefits) to factors which, while more subtle, ultimately affect how employees are motivated and retained — and demonstrate how you’ve taken steps to create a corporate culture where they can thrive.

Below is a list of 11 Employer branding best practices (adapted from a list created by Brett Minchington) that provides clear steps towards establishing an employer brand that bridges business “needs” with employee “wants” and thereby creating a fishbowl that you can proudly display.

1. Establish a real-time career development for employees

Today real-time career development can be facilitated with some imagination, technology devices, innovation and focus.

Take an hour to speak with your employees and assist them to develop a real-time career development plan. This may include coaching them to develop a plan that tracks their career development interests, current job function responsibilities and personal development interests (if it’s just work related people will switch off, many employees want a blended life so if you mix it up a little you will keep it interesting).

2. Get buyin from other functional areas within your organization

It’s no longer efficient or effective to develop and implement an employer brand strategy solely with HR resources and budget. Your employer brand is interconnected with your corporate and consumer brand and the total portfolio needs to be considered if you really want to build an adaptable and agile employer brand.

Schedule a two hour meeting with leaders from HR, Marketing, Communications and IT and have a discussion around these agenda items – it will start the conversation and provide for some good discussion on where to go next. Some of the questions that may be useful include:

• How will a stronger employer brand support our business strategy e.g. mergers and acquisitions, growth, consolidation?
• What are the main factors currently driving our employer brand?
• What kind of organizational culture do we have? How consistent is it across geographical and divisional boundaries?
• What are the most consistently attractive and compelling organizational attributes for both current employees and potential employees?
• What behaviors are felt to be most characteristic of our organization? What are the moments of truth when our organization is at its best (and worse?)
• What is the most useful way of segmenting the employee population in terms of cultural characteristics and distinctive needs?
• What are the most effective channels of employee communication, both top/down and bottom/up?
• Which positions are most critical to our success and what are we currently doing/need to do to attract, engage and retain this talent?
• What levels of resources are we prepared to invest in our employer brand strategy?
• What time frame will we be working towards to define and develop our employer brand strategy?

3. Assess your employer branding performance against best practice

Take this quick assessment to see how your employer branding initiatives measure up against best practice companies. Answer yes of no to each question and then total your score out of 20.

1. We have developed an employer brand strategy
2. We have developed a social media strategy
3. We have at least two of the following working closely on our employer brand strategy – HR/Marketing/Communications/IT
4. Alignment to brand values is part of our performance management system
5. We have an active coaching and mentoring program in place to transfer knowledge and build internal capabilities
6. We have defined our employer brand metrics
7. We have conducted research to determine the perception current employees have about our company
8. We have conducted research to determine the perceptions prospective employees have about our company
9. We monitor what people are saying about our brand online
10. We have identified the leadership competencies we aspire employees at all levels to have
11. We have created a database of talented employees who we would like to hire when the time is right
12. We have a dedicated careers section on our corporate website
13. Managers have access to a leadership development program
14. We have defined our employer value propositions (EVPs)
15. We have reviewed our EVP’s in light of the Global Financial Crisis
16. We have an active employee referral program which we promote to staff and external stakeholders
17. We conduct an employee engagement, satisfaction and/or climate survey at least once per year
18. We participate in an external annual best employers and/or employer of choice survey
19. Each staff member has a documented career development plan that is reviewed at least annually
20. We use an IT system to automate our recruitment process and rank candidates against weighted criteria

How did you rate?

0-5 We are in the very early stages
6-12 We have made a start
13-17 We just need some fine tuning
18-20 We are up there with the best

4. Review and update your employer value proposition (EVP) communication assets

When was the last time you review your EVP communication assets, how long ago were they developed? Make it a project to review all your internal and external EVP communication tools and ask the following questions:

• Does our employer value proposition clearly reflect the current employment experience?
• How inspiring is our welcome pack for new hires? How does it differentiate our employment offering?
• Can we deliver on what we are promising in our recruitment communication efforts?
• How effective is our social media strategy – are we engaging with our communities or are we merely broadcasting about our products and services?
• If I was looking for a job how inspired would I be by what our company is communicating and how consistent is the messaging
• How well do our communication assets flow from text – images – audio – video?
• How authentic is our messaging?
• How do we feel about the tone, style and imagery we are using in our communications?

Based on the outcomes of your review, schedule a project to update your communication assets across key offline and online touchpoints.

For a best practice case study, see how effective Starbucks is across its online platforms including facebook, twitter and YouTube

5. Learn from best practice employer brand companies

Study and learn from companies who are leading the way in employer branding including Google, IBM, Starbucks, Sodexo, SAS, Singapore Airlines, Deloitte, McKinsey, etc there are many but these are some good companies to observe and learn from – for starters!. Don’t just study companies in your own industry – you’ll find companies outside your industry a great source of innovation for employer branding best practice. Companies in the oil and gas industry companies such as Chevron, Schlumberger and Shell are good companies to follow as are the major players in the banking and finance industry such as Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.  They all invest in employer branding!

6. Assess the employee lifecycle

Have your business unit leaders assess the employee lifecycle in their function to evaluate how well it adds value to an inspiring employment experience and one that adds, not distracts from engagement and retention efforts.

Employees at your company will transition through different stages of the employee’s lifecycle depending on factors such as age, education, experience, living arrangements, marital status, etc. It is important to understand how important these ‘moments of truths’ are to employees and to realize which ones if not handled well, can be deal breakers and result in employees seeking another place to work whilst being unconsciously unproductive in their current role. It is important to make adjustments based on observation and feedback from employees.

7. Your existing employees are your best brand ambassadors

With the rise of social networking, your company, how you run it and your culture has become a fishbowl. And like it or not, disgruntled workers have an abundance of channels for broadcasting their opinions of the company. The tsunami of people using tools such as Facebook and Twitter to air their loves and hates to the world challenges the degree of control companies have historically had over public perception.

You can not control what is being said but you can substantially influence it by communicating the facts about life inside your company and how employees feel about it. Evaluating and upgrading the employee value proposition is the indispensable first step to creating favorable buzz about working for your company.

Train employees in how to use and leverage social media to support branding efforts and develop a social media sharing culture within your  organization. It won’t happen just because your company has a Facebook page or Twitter profile, employees need to be trained across the company to ensure your initiatives are aligned with your brand strategy. Conduct internal influencer studies to identify your social media rockstars — those employees who are the most connected, active and influential social media participants in your organization.

8. Write a handbook

Write a handbook about your employment practices and use it as an EVP communications tool for all stakeholders. Over a 12 month period, an HR Manager at Essar, a multinational conglomerate corporation in the sectors of steel, energy, power, communications, shipping ports and logistics as well as construction, compiled a book on the company’s mentoring practices and included insights from leaders and employees across the organization. While the publication took a while to write, it provides a lifetime of value for Essar. It has also been an excellent tool to build internal engagement as employees were involved in the development of the product and distribution of it on its release. So find a topic, write about it and share it with stakeholders!

9. Connect your employees on the inside!

How often do we see the ‘wheel being re-invented inside organizations because there is no way to track what has been developed previously and if it has, it’s usually outdated or too hard to find. IBM have had some great success in this area by establishing an internal social networking tool, ‘Beehive’ which has allowed employees across the world to make new connections, share knowledge and capabilities and to advance their career. Connected employees will lead to higher levels of communication and trust between employees across the enterprise and is becoming more important in today’s increasingly dispersed workforces.

10. Foster a culture that mentors employees, not one that burns them out

Too many of today’s leaders are too busy to spend quality time coaching and mentoring or even just communicating with team members due to shorter deadlines, increasing workloads and longer working hours.

Even senior leaders become burnt out, fail to take holidays and disconnect from the very people who can assist them, their staff. This leads to higher levels of disengagement which is an all too common output in organizations around the world today.  For the first time in a decade, research from the Hewitt Global Engagement database shows the percentage of organizations with decreasing engagement now exceeds the percentage with increasing engagement. Slow down. Take the time to share your knowledge and experiences with middle managers to enrich your talent pipelines, increase trust and developed capabilities.

11. Build employer brand awareness, knowledge, skills and capabilities

Most of time employees don’t buy into your vision to develop and implement an employer brand strategy because they lack the skills and capabilities to do so. Employer branding is an emerging field in many economies so take the time to build awareness, knowledge, skill and capabilities within your organization. I’ve written two books, ‘Employer Brand Leadership-A Global Perspective’ and ‘Your Employer Brand attract-engage-retain’, and a do it yourself guide, ‘The Employer Brand Manager’s Handbook-2011 International edition’ which will assist you to build employer branding capabilities inside your company.

Additional resources:

Employer Branding:Winning the Post Recession Competition for Talent, Murray Associates

An exclusive, in-depth look into the Super Bowl’s first ever social media command center, the folks who ran it, and how the convergence of technology and people created the ultimate online Super Bowl experience.

Me with Taulbee Jackson, CEO of Raidious

You would think that, the day before the biggest sporting event of the year, the people in charge of the Super Bowl’s Social Media Command Center would be frantic, running around and putting out last minute fires. So imagine my surprise when I walked in and found it to be quite the opposite. Entering the offices of Raidious — the Indianapolis-based digital communications company behind the social media command center — the air was full of activity, but the mood was quiet and calm… almost, I dare say, serene.

And it’s no wonder. Having worked with such brands as Finish Line, Bass Pro Shops and Comcast, Raidious has honed the art of making, managing, and measuring the content that makes digital marketing work. And so, for the folks at Raidious, this really is almost like business as usual — despite this being the largest event they’ve ever managed. A group of 16 Raidious employees and 30 local college and university volunteers were stationed at what can only be akin to iMac Heaven and focused on monitoring all of the Super Bowl’s social media channels. Leading these individuals was Taulbee Jackson, CEO of Raidious. It was my pleasure that he took a few minutes of his day to chat with me

The Super Bowl Host Committee reached out to Raidious for assistance with the committee’s media department over a year and a half ago. Jackson then developed a mission that didn’t compete with the social media or marketing efforts of NFL Enterprises, but to showcase the city of Indianapolis and to create what he calls the “ultimate Super Bowl experience.”

The model was simple: monitor, moderate and publish. Aside from monitoring the Super Bowl’s official blog, Twitter account (@SuperBowl2012), hashtags (#sb46, #superbowl, #sbvillage and #nflexperience), and Facebook page, below is a play-by-play of the action plan:

A 9-screen monitor wall (over 100 sq feet) which provided real-time info from various sources

Mission & Goals

1.  Super Safety – With an anticipated 150,000 visitors to descend on Indianapolis, a main focus of the social media command center is to ensure public safety. They will monitor social media channels for traffic situations, parking recommendations, and anything that could be considered suspicious behavior or malevolent. Additionally, should a crisis situation present itself, the command center will disseminate information for Homeland Security and public safety command centers.
2. Super Service – Part of delivering on the ultimate Super Bowl Experience means highlighting the hospitality of Indianapolis, providing directions, guidance and navigation, and offering information about ongoing Super Bowl events to visitors. The command center will also respond to any negative dialog related to the city or event and to mitigate any negative sentiment — that is, Twitter messages or Facebook comments from disgruntled fans and followers will likely get a rapid response.
3. Capture the Experience – A large function of the social media command center is to gather information, post images and videos, and write content. Essentially, to know what’s happening when and where, capture it and publish it.
4. Amplification – The command center not only monitored conversation, but it was also curators and communicators of content that highlighted positive things related to Indianapolis and the Super Bowl, and used digital channels to spread this information.

Campaigns & Programs

• #Social46 – As part of the effort to make the Super Bowl the most connected story in history, 46 of the most socially influential people (based on their Klout scores) in Indiana were selected to represent the city and state of Indiana, as well as give exclusive insight into all things related to the Super Bowl. Read more.
• #Supercars – To  bring a little “Indy” to the NFL, 33 Indy cars were placed around the state of Indiana, one for each of the 32 NFL teams and one for Super Bowl XLVI. Fans of both the NFL and Indy 500 drove around the state  to find each car. Read more.
• Foursquare – Considering that over 130,000 people checked into last year’s Super Bowl, it was only natural to use location-based Foursquare as a means to deliver flash sales to visitors checking in to local hot spots and Super Bowl events.
• #46Stories – Raidious asked 46 media outlets in and around the Indianapolis area to collect and publish stories and to help generate conversation and hype. The 46 stories series gives fans access to events around the city and also asks for them to share their own stories. Complete archive of Super Bowl 46 stories.
• Content Team – Huddles were spread around the city to act as “human versions of Google.” Armed with Galaxy tablets, members of the huddle teams were prepared to answer visitors questions such as where to find a good place to eat or to provide directions and guidance. Each huddle was comprised of an 11 person team, including a Quarterback (the leader) and a Running Back (a runner of information). Additionally, visitors could take images or record a video at various Social Sharing kiosks that would then be posted to the Super Bowl’s YouTube or Flickr channels.

Thirty university and college students helped monitor online chatter using Awareness, Inc. Social Media Monitoring Hub

Tools & Technology

•  Awareness, Inc. – After test driving many different social monitoring systems, Raidious chose Awareness Inc.’s Social Media Marketing Hub for publishing, monitoring and analyzing conversation streams. Raidious  chose Awareness, Inc because of it’s capabilities and user interface, liking it so much that they even worked with Awareness, Inc. developers to further enhance the analytics portion of the service (to be available in a future release). Using the Hub’s built-in workflow, the 30 university volunteers would monitor and respond to chatter that would then be immediately put into an “editing” queue. One of the 16 Raidious employees would then approve the response and push it live.
• ChaCha Answers Application – ChaCha, also based in Indianapolis, is a service that gives free, real-time answers to any question both online at ChaCha.com and through mobile phones. Raidious used ChaCha to build a list of responses to take the guess work out of how to best answer comments or chatter for the volunteers.
• NSixty – Raidious used NSixty to create the video recording kiosks found throughout the Super Bowl Village. These were available for visitors to create videos via the video recording stations which would then be uploaded into a moderation queue and then published to YouTube or Flickr by a Raidious employee.
• Monitor Wall (NFL Network, WTHR, ESPN) – On the wall of the social media command center was a 9-screen monitor wall (over 100 sq feet) which provided real-time web traffic from Google Analytics (beta), sentiment & web monitoring via Social Mention, geotargeted monitoring from real time trends from NewsMap, and sentiment from WeFeelFine.org.

Measurement & Engagement
The Social Media Command Center tracked five key metrics :

• Reach – this metric is based on the number of people in the direct audience. So, the number of Twitter followers (27, 955 as of this writing) and Facebook fans (currently just over 17,000). Before Raidious became involved, the direct audience was hovering around 5,000 followers and fans. In two weeks time, Raidious grew that audience to over 48,000 (as of Kick off) simply by commenting on wall posts and responding to tweets. Which proves that proactive engagement does indeed work.
• Amplification – this metric is based on the number of impressions generated by the direct audience’s audience. So, retweets, shares and other impressions that were generated by the second level audience (friends of friends). According to Jackson, they were seeing content amplified at 800K – 1M impressions a day — that’s an estimated 14 million audience just in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Translating that into cost per thousand, he estimated that they were providing over 500K in value to the Super Bowl’s overall marketing strategy.
• Sentiment – assessing the mood / emotions of the overall audience by looking at the context, tone, emotion, polarity and objectivity of the comments. Sentiment is measured as a positive:negative ratio — the ratio of mentions that are generally positive to those that are generally negative. According to the metrics available at the time I spoke with Jackson, the current sentiment was 3:1 positive ratio — this ratio is not commonly seen above 2:1, so this achievement is something of which to be quite proud.
• Influence – relates to how influential the Host committee is based on Klout score. The Super Bowl’s Klout score is holding steady at 68 while the NFL has a Klout score of 65.
• Activity – how often content was being published. Jackson anticipated this number to increase slightly, but he was also very cognizant of avoiding audience burn.
• As of Friday, fans had already made more than 1,748 videos and 4,502 postcards via the social sharing kiosks with an average of 700+ interactions a day. Read more.
• Jackson estimated that his team was sending one response every two minutes. Compound that number over the 48 hours just before Kick off and you have an activity rate of 1,440 responses.
• Social-TV analytics company, Bluefin Labs has so far tracked more than 12.2 million social-media comments during and after Super Bowl XLVI, primarily on Twitter and Facebook. That’s a 578% increase over the total Bluefin tracked last year (1.8 million). Read more.

It’s clear that the efforts of the Social Media Command Center had two overall accomplishments of which everyone involved (the NFL, Raidious, and all the vendors) should be proud: 1) provided guidance and generated content for people who attended the Super Bowl in real life, and 2) extended the Super Bowl experience to a direct audience of 48,000 plus an amplified audience of 14M (calculating the 2 weeks leading up to the Super Bowl) in various online communities.

I would like to thank Taulbee for his time and a shout out to all the folks at Raidious for a great visit. Most importantly, I would like to thank Awareness, Inc and Scratch Marketing + Media (Jenn Reilly) for inviting me to experience the efforts of the Social Media Command Center first hand.

For once in my life I’m skeptical. And for you die-hard Pinterest fans, I hope you’ll bear with me as I explain my current disinterest in Pinterest.

I can’t get my sister-in-law to interact with me on Facebook. But she freaking LOVES Pinterest. And has been trying to get me to use it for a couple of months. And given the recent chatter on Social Media Today, I finally broke down this past Saturday and joined using my Facebook account to establish my Pinterest profile.

Over the course of the weekend, I noticed that I was receiving e-mails that “so and so” was now following me on Pinterest. At first I thought, WOW, I’m super popular. But then reality set in and I decided to see what was up. A quick call to my sister-in-law let me know that she received an e-mail that I was now following her on Pinterest and so she followed me back. My reaction? Wow, I never asked to follow you. In fact, I didn’t ask to follow anybody.

It turns out that when I used my Facebook account to create my profile, Pinterest accessed my personal information to automatically have me start following common connections. In my book, Pinterest broke a basic tenet of online privacy: to not invasively use my online information.

Connecting your Facebook account should either be an easier method for authentication (verifying identity) or to suggest friends to follow. I appreciate the ease of use that Pinterest is attempting to provide, but when it comes to deciding whom I follow—or not—that should be at my discretion, exercised manually. Additionally, while the Pinterest Privacy Disclosure does mention the use of personal information from Facebook to create a Pinterest account, it does not explicitly mention that it would be using that information to predetermine my followees. (You also have the option to establish your profile using your Twitter account, which does not trigger auto-follow, I’m told.)

A quick Google search shows me that other individuals have encountered this same issue:

“wow, Pinterest, really bad behavior you don’t make me automatically follow people without telling me just from signing up”
Adam Fick, Twitter

“The warning that I will give out about Pinterest is that they are not very good at maintaining your privacy when it comes to respecting your wishes about how much they share from your other social networking sites (you have to use Facebook to open an account).”
– How to Unfollow People on Pinterest, Infobarrel

“I thought pinterest would be a cool way for me to categorize great content from webpages so I could stop emailing links to myself. I thought my page would be a nice blend of my and other nerds’ (whom I followed by choice) repositories of great info. As it turns out, I’m now following 78 women and 3 men against my will.”

“Pinterest has really bad privacy settings (or none) and I hate that. If you find a forum for pinning photos or links, that is private (like as private as an email account or something of that nature) let me know. I don’t like the automatic follow and following. I don’t like that I can’t link to articles, as well as, photos. I would like to use it as my own personal links library, not as another social media platform.”
– So, let me tell you why I dislike Pinterest…and how to unfollow people on Pinterest, Josh’s Blog

In today’s world online privacy is critical. So here are some quick suggestions that I have for Pinterest:

1. Use Facebook information to suggest friends to follow, but do not automatically follow them on my behalf.
2. Create privacy settings as there currently are none. At a minimum, I should be able to create contributor groups and then establish individual viewing permissions for each of my boards for those groups.
3. Establish a method that allows people to unfollow connections in bulk. Currently, you have to unfollow people individually.
4. Err on the side of restricting information first and then allow the user to decide what information should be shared.

Online privacy is difficult to manage and I don’t envy budding social networks like Pinterest because they have many factors to consider. The relation between privacy and a person’s social network is multi-faceted. In certain occasions we want information about ourselves to be known only by a small circle of close friends, and not by strangers. In other instances, we are willing to reveal personal information to anonymous strangers, but not to those who know us better. (Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Networks, Carnegie Mellon University)

This is a painful lesson that Facebook learned: the importance of user-controlled privacy settings. Many people have voiced frustration as Facebook has released new versions. But the value in what they’ve done is that they’ve become the only site that allows you to personalize who and what people see all the way down to the individual news items or even individual photos in your albums. It’s been worth the pain for me.

It is absolutely not my intent to lessen the current excitement and chatter Pinterest has been generating, or the value that it introduces to the social networking community. But I think it’s important to call out the importance of online privacy. And please, don’t get me wrong. I’m still really excited about the possibilities of Pinterest. But, unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to really try it out because I’m currently in the tedious process of unfollowing people.. one by one.

For a social media geek you could say that I don’t necessarily adhere to traditional views on privacy. I say this because I’m “out there.” EVERYWHERE. In fact, when I usually bring up online privacy, most people who know me have a “YOU are talking about privacy??” reaction. But here’s the thing. I care about online privacy because I’m so out there and it’s critical that I have the ability to personalize and control what information I share and with whom I share it.

I’m interested in knowing if anyone else had a similar experience? And I’m also interested in collecting more online privacy control suggestions for Pinterest from those people who have actively been using it. Please feel free to post your comments below.

Best,

Elizabeth

I consider myself very philosophical. But I do not like the proverbial chicken and egg question. And I get asked this a lot: What do you think comes first? A great company to work for or great people who work there?  To me it’s just an exercise in futility because, at the end of the day, one doesn’t exist without the other. That is, without good people, it’s extremely difficult for an organization to be great. And vice versa. In 2009, employee turnover cost U.S. businesses an estimated $300 billion. The staggering cost of employee turnover can be viewed as simply the cost of doing business, however, additional damage occurs when turnover is compounded by poor hiring and management practices. (The Real Cost of a Bad Hire, TEK Systems)

Finding Great People

But that means you have to be deliberate and thoughtful in your hiring practices. It’s tempting to make rash hiring decisions because you simply “need a body.” But that wrong body in the wrong job can end up costing your company more in the long run. With today’s economy and operating costs, companies simply can’t afford to hire “bad eggs.”

The scarcest commodity in business is not customers or technology capital — its people. And the greatest challenge for recruiters and leaders isn’t just hiring people — it’s hiring the right people for the right jobs. When people operate in their “sweet spot,” they lead, naturally. You don’t have to tell them to lead. You don’t have to ask them to lead. They just do it. (Developing Great Leaders for Great Companies, Steve Olson, Generative Consulting)

There are several different costs associated with replacing an experienced employee, all of which directly impact a company’s financial performance:

• The cost of covering the position while vacant
• The cost of finding a replacement. In fact,
• The cost of getting a new person up to speed

And did you know:

• Replacement of an employee can range from two to seven times his / her salary
• Hiring and training costs can vary from 25 to 200% of annual compensation
• The more an employee earns, the more money it costs to replace him / her
  (The Real Cost of a Bad Hire, TEK Systems)

Thanks to a survey published by Careerbuilder.com and illustrated by Mindflash’s infographic, “The Staggering Cost of Bad Hires“, we learn just how much bad hires cost companies, and what you can do to avoid them.

• Conduct great interviews
• Always check references
• Give your employee a great first day on the job

To this list I would also add:

• Be methodical. It’s better and more cost effective to take a longer time to find the right employee with the right skills rather than hiring the wrong employee / replacing a bad one.
• Culture fit. Ensure the person’s personality and work style fit within the company culture.
• Consider the EVP. The Employee Value Proposition. Ask yourself what makes someone successful at your company? What makes someone unsuccessful?

People are ‘not’ the most important thing…The ‘right’ people are. In fact, the ‘wrong’ people are your biggest liability.

Operating as a Great Company

Some people might argue that the greatness of a company is based on the greatness of its leaders. I don’t disagree. But great leaders must come from somewhere: great leaders are not born; great leaders are made. And any company looking for great leaders should look first at their own internal talent pool.

Operating as a great company means developing great leaders by lining up employees to their “sweet spot.” Putting them in positions that takes advantage of what they’re good at, what they like doing, and for which they have a genuine passion.

Laurie Bassi, Ph.D. co-authored a study showing a link between investments in training and company success. Her research demonstrated that companies that spend more on training on perform better financially than do those companies that spend less.

Her publication, Maximizing Your Return on People, identifies 23 HCM practices that fall within five broad HCM driver categories:

• Leadership practices
• Employee engagement
• Knowledge accessibility
• Workforce optimization
• Learning capacity

In general, improvements or declines in organizational performance can be tied directly to improvements or declines in HCM practices. It also includes a great self-assessment survey for estimating your organization’s HCM effectiveness.

Without a doubt, the adoption of using social technologies inside the organization is rampant. So many companies are hearing the loud beat of the “employee engagement” drum, but the task of effectively assessing your needs, implementing technologies correctly, and measuring for success and sustainability is a daunting project. So, it’s okay to slow down, take a deep breath and work from a well-crafted roadmap. Few things make employees more cynical than a social media platform that no one uses. And if your company quickly deployed a ["insert social tool here"] only to find that it fell flat because no one saw the value in using it then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Therefore, it’s refreshing to see firms such as Gagen MacDonald and APCO Worldwide working together to help shape internal social media programs. Recently, they analyzed research among U.S. adults working for companies with more than 500 employees that revealed 21 discrete attributes which in turn combine to form three major factors (see image below) that employees look for when deciding whether their company has effective social media internally.

As a result of their research, Gagen MacDonald and APCO Worldwide created a five-step process to build social media from within, ensuring sustainable change through shared goal-setting, leadership alignment, employee training and measurement of key metrics. Some highlights are below but the full whitepaper is available: Harness the Power of Internal Social Media.

A Five Step Roadmap for Internal Social Media

1. Assess

• Prioritize your business objectives by determining what it is you are trying to achieve: employee retention, boost collaboration, enhance executive visibility, increase speed to innovation or turn your employees into powerful brand ambassadors.
• Map your communication by analyzing your current information flow and determining how employees engage your intranet or social media tools.
• Determine what your ideal social media ecosystem would look like. What cultural differentiators are you hoping to foster?

2. Align for Design

• Assess your perceived issues and actual limitations by balancing potential risks against projected gains in productivity, collaboration and innovation.
• Develop solid company guidelines for social media use and use metrics to measure how well your engagement
  tools are working.
• Align and train your leadership and get senior management buy-in to create a social networking mindset across business functions.

3. Implement

• Identify the most effective tools for your needs—from wikis and microblogs to robust knowledge-sharing and innovation platforms.
• Work closely with your IT teams to ensure your efforts are compliant with all internal rules, standards and architectures.

4. Ensure Sustainability

• To harness the power of social media and ensure your networking investments are sustainable, it is essential that you implement replicable, enterprise-wide training so that you overcome capability gaps (e.g., generational, geographical) that are present within your company.

5. Measure and Adjust

• Let’s face it, judging social media ROI is difficult. But by establishing a benchmark and then conducting employee engagement focus groups and surveys, linkage analyses, social media diagnostics and business analytics, it is possible to see how you deliver against expectations.
• Keep what works, tweak what doesn’t. Troubleshoot your challenges and identify cost-effective ways to reactivate your underutilized social media channels.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: it’s innovative and encouraging to see so many companies tackling collaboration and productivity through the use of social technologies. But a connected enterprise doesn’t automatically create an engaged workforce.

It’s easy to create a collaboration portal, but it’s much more difficult to make engagement a way of life in your organization.

I’m interested in hearing what you think about this five step roadmap and whether it differs from one that you might have created. If so, please share. I’d love to hear from you.

~ Elizabeth

Welcome to our Who’s Who list of companies who specialize in Social HR technology.

Are you in HR technology and wondering what options you have in software vendors? Or are you wondering what technology companies are transforming HR into more social functions? Then look no further. The list below has been collected from a couple of online sources as well as from our own research. The companies are listed in alphabetical order, but sortable by product solution. If you feel a company has been listed incorrectly or if you are a representative of the company and wish to modify your information, please contact us.

Solution categories:

• Employee Engagement – Employee surveys, opinions
• e-Learning – Learning management, talent development
• HCM Solution – Human capital management system that offers an overall solution
• People Management – Workforce analytics, case management, succession planning
• Recruitment – Acquiring talent, candidate search, applicant tracking
• Total Rewards – Reward & recognition, performance management, benefits
• Talent Management – Staffing solutions

Sources:
HR Tech Conference, Expo List, http://www.hrtechconference.com/expo/index_HRT_expo.html
Top 10 HCM Software Vendors, Business-Software.com/HCM

About the Author: Kyle is the HR Analyst at SoftwareAdvice. By day, he blogs about HR trends, technology, and best practices. By night, he’s the Relations Chair for Austin-based independent theatre company, PaperChairs.

When leaving home or the office, what are the must-have items you would never go without? Wallet? Got it. Keys? Yup. Your mobile recruiting application…? Well, sure! Today’s anytime-anywhere mobile access is changing the way we do business. You see, with the right apps and  tools, users can manage any number of human resources and workforce management processes from their mobile devices.

It’s official: HR technology developers are working full throttle to bring new solutions for hiring, managing the workforce and tracking HR to the mobile market. Many of the mobile tools currently on the market in our industry are focused on recruiting and talent management. Thankfully, we’ve begun to see applications cropping up that give business owners the ability to access highly valuable data on the go. Based on functionality, ease of use, and downright coolness, there are a few mobile tools that rank amongst my favorites:

Acquiring Talent

Kenexa 2xMobile enables hiring managers to manage their hiring processes on the go. Keeping in mind how busy managers can get, the application focuses on key hiring tasks so they can execute the most basic actions needed to move the hiring process along. This app is free, and syncs with Kenexa’s SaaS-based applicant tracking system, but users must have a Kenexa license.

Jobvite is one tool that has a lot of people talking. This an innovative candidate sourcing solution that enables your employees to send job invitations (or Jobvites) to members of their networks on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook from just about anywhere. Attracting passive candidates by way of employee referrals just got that much easier. To plug in to this tool, though, you’ll need a Jobvite subscription.

Managing Talent

Vortex’sMobileManagerConnect is an online workforce management application that enables users to manage their operation’s scheduling needs on the go. Review, edit and approve time cards, violations and time off requests, and seamlessly sync changes with your existing HR management and payroll systems. The app is free, but users need users Vortex Connect license to use it.

RyppleFeedback is another web-based application is getting some buzz. At its core, it turns performance reviews into a far more engaging experience. Leveraging social networking concepts for a more collaborative experience, Rypple makes it easy for you to recognize achievements and offer regular feedback to your employees. Rypple currently offers various subscription options from free to $9 per user per month.

Additional Resources

HRatYourFingertips is an HR terms and concepts reference tool. Valuable for the layman and guru alike, this application is divided into three sections. The glossary covers 270+ key terms and concepts. The HR Laws section contains information on federal laws, including eligibility and compliance standards. The app also contains a beginner’s guide for writing an employee handbook. This mobile app is currently available only for the iPhone or iPad.

HRConcepts’ MobileBenefits gives employees the ability to tap into health benefit account information on their smart phones. Review claims and account balances, and submit new receipts by taking a picture with their mobile devices. Transmissions are encrypted and secure, and sensitive information is never stored on your mobile device. This straightforward tool takes employee self-service one step further.

What are some applications that are helping make your life easier?

SHRM released its Future Insights Report on the Top Trends for HR according to SHRM’s HR Subject Matter panel.  This report highlights key HR-related topics and trends, as seen by subject matter experts from SHRM’s Special Expertise Panels. These trends are a valuable resource for any HR professional interested in seeing what issues HR subject matter experts believe will have the biggest impact on the workplace today and in the years ahead.

The report is broken down into key categories for HR, with each area having about 10 top trends. The trends indicate a promising revolution to the traditional role of  HR in the organization and how organizations interact with employees and HR’s important role in this change. Of note, however, is the distressing (but not all that  surprising to read) insight that technology and social media are seen as becoming more of a negative influence on workplace civility, manners, company information, privacy, business writing and etiquette. And their use is seen as increasing opportunities and avenues for harassment.

The full report is available here.

Here are some highlights from other key categories:

Employee Engagement

• HR is seeing the importance of being high-touch in a high-tech world and is increasing efforts to maintain and enhance employee engagement.
• As companies and workplaces change with economic, social, technological and other demographic shifts, HR is becoming more instrumental in facilitating effective change management and integrating culture as a regular duty as opposed to a special project.
• HR has seen the need to increase efforts in building trust between employees and the company, especially when lack of trust is not based on one specific incident or a situation specific to the employee. Companies have forgotten that employees matter.

Employee Relations

• Effective employee relations practices are becoming essential to business continuity in the context of possible natural or other unforeseen disasters.
• HR continues to develop an acute sensitivity to the impact of the external environment on the workforce and the business as a whole. In that context, effective employee relations practices are becoming increasingly important as companies observe the link between employee engagement/satisfaction and productivity. Recognizing the importance of embedding effective employee relations practices in all HR disciplines will make HR more effective as a business and strategic partner.
• HR is increasing efforts toward workforce readiness now and in the future. As the economy changes, those currently in the workforce—especially the underemployed—are becoming more of a focus for HR. That is, HR is determin­ing whom their organizations can—or want to—retain once the economy has turned around while keeping an eye on the possible overall talent loss as international workforces expand.
• Managing multiple generations in the workplace is not the issue some thought it would have been. Baby Boomers are not leaving in masses, and they have shown that they can work with Gen X and Gen Y; generations in the workplace isn’t an area where HR professionals are spending their time.

• User experience and ease of use are becoming significantly more important to employees when it comes to HR technology solutions.
• One-size-fits-all solutions are decreasing in popularity and effectiveness, given the increasing diversity and complexity of issues affecting HR departments.
• Employees are increasingly expecting a more integrated digital experience when it comes to their interactions with HR (e.g. single sign-on, one-stop shopping).
• Employees are increasingly expecting their HR departments to provide mobile access to core HR functions.
• Social media tools are increasingly becoming an integral component of virtually all HR functions, including employee relations, benefits management, and training and development.
• HR less frequently views its role in social media as a policing function and more as a means of helping its organizations leverage social media for maximum employee engagement.
• HR departments are gaining more autonomy and flexibility in making technology decisions that affect their work.
•  HR departments are increasing their reliance on video conferencing as well as helping their organizations adopt this technology in appropriate ways.
• Software as a service as well as cloud-based software solutions are increasingly becoming the preferred direction for HR technology.
•  HRIS solutions are increasingly offering integration with social media tools such as LinkedIn.

About the Special Expertise Panels’ Trends

As part of the thought leadership pillar within the SHRM strategic plan, Special Expertise Panel members act as thought leaders whose input creates pathways for SHRM’s thought leadership within the profession and among a wider business audience. The lists of key trends the panels produce make use of these experts’ insights to uncover a wide range of HR-related trends. These lists assist SHRM in creating forward-looking information and content for our members in forums such as the online HR Focus Areas, research articles, reports and surveys, and through media and outreach efforts.

Wondering how other organizations are faring with the social transformation of their corporate Intranets? The Go To” report for companies interested in knowing what other companies are doing has just been released by Prescient Digital Media.

The Social Intranet Study December 2011 examines social media use on corporate intranets and the magnitude, use, and popularity of social media by employees and executives. The study findings and analysis are based on  the survey conducted between late May and early June 2011 by Toby Ward, Prescient Digital Media, in association with the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). The results reveal  rapid adoption of social media on the corporate intranet in the past year.

The survey was completed by over 1,401 participants in small, medium and large organizations in all types of industries, from all corners of the globe.

The Top 10 Most Common Intranet Tools

The report found that social media tools such as blogs, wikis and other vehicles are present on most corporate intranets: 61 percent have at least one social media tool available to some or all employees. The most popular Intranet 2.0 tools are blogs, discussion forums, instant messaging and wikis.

1. Blogs - 75 percent have intranet blogs; 26 percent have deployed blogs enterprise wide; only 4 percent have no plans or interest in deploying blogs.
2. Discussion Forums - 65 percent have intranet discussion forums; 26 percent use them enterprise wide; 7 percent have no plans or interest in deploying intranet discussion forums.
3. Instant Messaging - 63 percent have intranet instant messaging; 44 percent use instant messaging enterprise wide; 16 percent have no plans or interest in intranet instant messaging.
4. Wikis - 61 percent have intranet wikis; 19 percent use intranet wikis enterprise wide; 12 percent have no plans or interest in deploying intranet wikis.
5. User Commenting - 60 percent have user commenting on their intranets; 32 percent have enterprise wide user commenting on their intranets; 8 percent have no plans or interest in user commenting.
6. RSS Feeds - 56 percent have intranet RSS; 21 percent use RSS feeds on their intranets enterprise wide; 10percent have no plans or interest in intranet RSS.
7. Search Tagging - 51 percent have intranet tagging; 26 percent use intranet tagging enterprise wide; 12 percent have no plans or interest in intranet tagging.
8. Video - 43 percent have user videos/vlogs; 15 percent have enterprise wide user videos/vlogs; 16 percent have no plans or interest in user videos/vlogs.
9. Social Networking - 43 percent have intranet social networking; 19 percent use social networking enterprise wide; 22 percent have no plans or interest in intranet social networking.
10. Microblogging - 42 percent have microblogging; 18 percent use microblogging enterprise wide; 22 percent have no plans or no interest in microblogging.

This is the free, summarized version of the complete Social Intranet Study. Non-participating individuals and organizations wanting a full copy of the 46 page report may purchase a copy for$89.00 through Prescient Digital.

I have a friend who works in a call center here in Columbus, OH. She is someone who’s not only passionate about her job, but also about having a voice and affecting change to improve her teams’ functions. But her greatest challenges to feeling included in impacting / changing company processes are related to the working environment itself: with the exception of a half hour lunch and two 15-minute breaks, she must be on the phone all day long making conversation with other colleagues impossible, and 2) opportunities to express opinions with other team members or suggest changes are limited to monthly team meetings. Neither of which are conducive to driving a culture of social, human interaction.

It’s hard enough to drive culture and drive engagement in the standard corporate environment, but imagine what it must be like to drive interaction and engagement in an environment where employees are separated and siloed as a requirement of the job. Call centers have a workplace setting that differs greatly from those of corporate, so I’ve always appreciated the diligence of contact (call) center employees and have wondered how it’s possible to drive (and enable) engagement, interaction and productivity when the basic functions of the job requires employees to be connected to their phones and computers their entire work day. From my meager understanding of the contact center environment, performance metrics are based on call quality, length and ability to wrap the calls as quickly as possible within government or corporate regulations… and performance numbers are scrutinized on a daily basis.

Because of these performance expectations, it can be difficult to keep contact center employees motivated and challenged on a daily basis — and to include all employees with major changes in the company. Because the work environment can be fairly regimented, employees may feel intimidated to voice their opinions. They often feel that offering suggestions is a waste of time because no one will do anything about it, which, in turn, makes them feel hopeless and unmotivated. And if no one cares how the employees feel or make an effort to listen, then why would they want to do their best to make the company as successful as it can be?

And the thought crosses my mind… if your front line contact center employees are given a voice with external customers, why wouldn’t you empower them to have a voice within the organization?

Give your front line a voice in process improvement for long term change that impacts culture, performance and morale.

In the most recent issue of Contact Center Pipeline, Natasha Gonzalez, Team Lead, Contact Center Operations, Wyndham Consumer Finance, Inc., shares how Wyndham senior leaders decided to implement changes to make contact center employees’ concerns a priority and to ensure that they know that their opinions are valued. They developed a plan to engage frontline agents in process improvement, and empowering employees by making them an essential part of the company’s decisions and goals; thereby allowing them to take ownership and responsibility of their own work.

Some highlights of the article:

• Identify Staff Pain Points – use the results of your employee opinion survey to conduct sessions with frontline supervisors and team leads to discuss the most common concerns and issues, and working with all departments to rank the issues and create a change plan.
• Use Six Sigma Tools to Improve Processes – Use an X-Y matrix, also known as a cause-and-effect matrix, which is a Six Sigma tool that allows a team to identify performance gaps and areas of improvement. This methodology removes subjectivity so that employees feel they are being scored fairly and accurately.
• Implementing Change and Training New Processes – As part of the overall change plan and communications strategy, allow the team leads or agents who participated in the discussions to present the new process to their peers. Use these same team leads to help conduct training sessions on the new process and make sure that management is involved as well.
• A Continuous Culture of Improvement – After a period of six months, hold follow-up discussions to gauge how the new process has impacted employee morale.

Do social technologies fit in?

One of the benefits to the natural synergy of a workplace environment is the ability to not only socialize but to also learn and glean knowledge from either other. In the absence of that, what do you do? Do social technologies fit in? It’d be interesting to learn whether or not there are contact centers who have successfully deployed collaboration sites so employees can connect with each other given that the natural environment prevents them from effectively doing so — either because they must be connected to the phone and call center system at all times or because it’s too unproductive to do so as it takes away from the ability to be ready for the next call that pops up in queue. Even call center employees should feel that they have an impact within their organizations and the company itself should work to provide an environment where employees have an opportunity to learn from their greatest resource: each other.

If you’re interested in this and other topics related to call centers, I encourage you to subscribe to Contact Center Pipeline. I actually found out about them because they asked if they could use my collection of employee engagement stats within their latest issue for its “Thought You Should Know” series.

Cheers,

Elizabeth