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A Socially Networked Company Makes for a More Human Workforce

November 6, 2009 · 0 comments

I love how social media has made our world just a little smaller — bringing people together across the globe who might not have met otherwise. For business, one of the biggest and most under-realized advantages to integrating social networking tools  is its ability to humanize a corporate workforce beyond just the typical four walls of a cubicle or office, and brings global colleagues and peers together to collaborate and communicate with each other who might not have otherwise known to use each other as resources. Without social networking tools, companies risk problems not being resolved, ideas becoming stagnant and employees feeling underutilized or underappreciated. So, if you’re a company wondering how you can unify your global workforce, social technologies are an excellent step to building a more collaborative, productive and HUMAN workforce.

A “networked company”: everything working everywhere. everyone working together.

Questions You Should be Asking

  • How networked are your employees?
  • How engaged are your employees?
  • How do you bring them together?
  • How do you bring down the silos and walls?
  • How do you tap into and foster employee ideas and collaboration to propel business results?

Where Companies Can See the Benefit of Social Networking

  • Cross-functional projects
  • HR matters
  • Standardized forms used daily by sales/service employees
  • Collaboration among geographically dispersed employees
  • To get all employees up to speed on new information quickly
  • Providing employees with common answers to their questions
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Tagged as: corporate social media, social networking, social networks

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Making a Business Case for Social Network Recruiting

November 2, 2009 · 0 comments

Original Post: The Many Benefits of Social Network Recruiting: Making a Compelling Business Case

How do you convince cynical executives to fund a social network recruiting effort?

It’s hard to argue against the statement that social networking (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) is an extremely hot topic in business. But I have yet to find a single CFO or senior executive willing to fully fund a comprehensive social network recruiting strategy based merely on the fact that it’s a hot concept.

Even when budget is made available, most organizations need to develop measures to help direct spending into the right efforts that will provide them with the highest recruiting impact and ROI. There is no escaping it: making a compelling business case must become a priority for social network recruiting champions.

In this article, I’ll provide an outline of the four basic business case steps covering how to secure funding during these tight economic times.

Business Case Step #1: Identify the Potential Benefits of Social Network Recruiting

Provide targeted executives with a list of potential benefits and then simply have them select the ones that (if proven) would be compelling enough to positively influence their decision. Have them eliminate benefits that, whether true or not, wouldn’t influence their decision.

With that guidance in hand, design a process that focuses on proving only those benefits that were selected as highly compelling.

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Tagged as: Recruiting, recruiting, social networking

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Dell Uses Social Media to Foster Employee Ideas and Engagement

October 2, 2009 · 8 comments

Original Source: Dell uses social media to gather employee ideas, Ragan Communications, Andrew Analore

EmployeeStorm allows employees to submit company ideas, speak candidly

EmployeeStormWhen it comes to internal communications, global technology giant Dell may have hit on the perfect storm: a social media platform, dubbed EmployeeStorm, which culls ideas from all of its business units and fosters discussion among employees.

Launched nearly a year ago, EmployeeStorm allows Dell’s worldwide community of more than 80,000 employees to post and discuss ideas on topics ranging from product upgrades and innovation to critiques of company policies, facilities improvements and benefits.

“It’s about anything or everything to do with Dell,” says Ellen Rich, Dell’s HR communications manager.

Powered by Salesforce.com’s IdeaExchange engine and integrated into Dell’s intranet, EmployeeStorm allows users to vote on ideas and highlight those they’d like to see implemented. Communications and leadership team members can join the discussion, keeping EmployeeStorm posters abreast of the status of the ideas they submit.

Launched in June 2007, EmployeeStorm is an offshoot of IdeaStorm, a brainstorming and discussion platform launched by Dell to get feedback from customers.

Vida Killian offers tips to those interested in launching their own EmployeeStorm platform.

“We don’t want employees submitting ideas externally. We want to keep those internal,” Vida Killian, manager of the IdeaStorm platform, told Ragan.com.

Ideas submitted by employees through EmployeeStorm are segmented into those for customers, such as new product ideas, and those for employees, such as suggestions for new cafeteria menu items. They are then routed to the right departments for consideration.

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Tagged as: dell, Employee Engagement, employeestorm, ideastorm, social networking

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Social Networking Goes to Work

August 25, 2009 · 0 comments

Original Source: Get Real: Social Networking in the Workplace, Information Management

For most serious business professionals, social networking has become a punchline, if not a downright nuisance. When we think of Facebook and MySpace, we picture teens and college students throwing sheep, sending virtual flowers and playing Mafia-themed games. We certainly don’t picture a productivity tool that can improve performance and cut costs.

Yet while this impression of traditional social networks such as Facebook are largely accurate, we shouldn’t let preconceived ideas prevent us from understanding and taking advantage of the potential power of social networking in the workplace. The key to successfully using social media in the workplace lies in understanding that it is a very different animal from its consumer cousins.

Strengths of social networking to the workplace, include three main uses: Building teamwork, organizing around a project and organically building a knowledge base. Each of these activities is a key success factor for most businesses, and each can be greatly improved by the use of social networking principles.

Building Teamwork

Historically, businesses have spent a lot of time and effort to build teamwork with staff meetings, holiday parties and offsite company retreats. What do these all have in common? They take place face to face. There is no substitute for actual face-to-face interaction, but company retreats are difficult to justify during tough economic times. We need to draw inspiration from the world of social networking.

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Tagged as: social networking

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Shape Up The Nation (Case Study): How Social Networking works for a Corporate Wellness Program

August 24, 2009 · 0 comments

It’s annual enrollment time, and companies — even mine — are looking for ways to encourage employees to participate in a corporate wellness program that promotes a healthy lifestyle, as it can ultimately mean reduced benefits costs for a company (e.g., smoking cessation, weight management). However, in these budget-conscious times, cost effective tactics are essential. If there was ever time that social media could be leveraged within corporate culture, a social network to drive wellness participation is almost certainly a no brainer — easy to implement, cost effective, with potential for much higher participation than traditional wellness programs.

Imagine my delight when I came across this timely article on using social networking to build participation. See below.

Source: Employers use social networking to maximize wellness program participation, Employee Benefit News


In the wellness industry today, incentives are all the rage. Frustrated by low participation in unpopular wellness programs, employers have resorted to offering golden carrots – often valued up to $1,000 per year – to get employees to engage. But why pay people to lose weight, exercise and eat healthier when all that’s really needed to boost participation is peer-to-peer engagement?

Shape Up The Nation, whose wellness platform is designed to connect employees of all fitness levels with others who share similar interests, has pioneered this innovative approach. The company’s online system enables employees to invite, challenge, track and motivate each other to achieve specific goals through teamwork, friendly competition, and accountability.

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Tagged as: case study, shape, shape up the nation, social networking, wellness program

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