Living in Interesting Times

Hire me

It’s almost three years since I last started a social job hunt. Back in November 2010, the concept of leveraging social media channels to create awareness of yourself to potential employers, whilst along the way creating content that both chronicled your insights and perceptions of the job hunting process, as well as showcasing the knowledge and attitude that you could bring to a role, was fairly new.

In October 2013 this is now more commonplace; in fact for many individuals it’s expected.

Using Social Networking for Job Hunting

At the recent Social Media Week London I joined Steve Ward and Bill Boorman in presenting to job seekers how they could effectively use social media as part of their job hunt. My session covered three areas:

Research – find out about sectors, businesses and individuals. Who is hiring, who may be hiring and who’s doing what in the industries that interest you and what skills, capabilities and knowledge they may require.

Engage – it’s not just enough to find out the information, you need to interact with the individuals, put yourself on their radar. You need to connect to the people who are doing the hiring, which may mean identifying those who can introduce you to them. And not just the companies and recruiters but also bloggers from your preferred sector; read what they write, comment and share.

Self-Promotion – make sure that what you do brings you to the attention of the people you are trying to reach. Use a video of yourself, create a blog (Tumblr or WordPress), use images and seek out and share interesting and unusual content and become known as someone who has access to and shares interesting insights. Develop reach and contacts.

Influence and Network

There’s little doubt in my mind that the importance of what someone can bring to an organisation in terms of knowledge, network, access to information and (crucially) that oft misused word influence will be crucial hiring factors in the very near future.

Attendees at the recent Discover Sourcing event heard Andrew Grill (ex CEO Kred, now IBM) present on ‘Talent in the Age of Social Business’ and talk of the importance of influence to a business both internally and externally, how to recognise it, source it and the importance of hiring it in to your organisation.

For me Kred are different from Klout, PeerIndex and other influence measures because of the outreach factor and the transparency – not about how much stuff you put out, or how often and how many followers see it, but about how you interact with and share others’ content, and how they interact with what you do.

Are you a trusted source? Do others share what you have shared? Do people trust and act upon what you say? Do you build authority? Or drive unique interactions from new sources? Do you build relationships? These are some of the things that hiring managers will be considering in the future.

When they hire you they will also be hiring a network, a community of people around you who are part of what you can bring to the day job. Connector, facilitator and enabler will be key attributes.

It’s over two years since an IBM Social Jam had as one of its conclusions that employees have a personal brand, existing both inside and outside the business, that companies do not own but effectively ‘rent’ from them whilst they are at work. They went on to say that these personal brands should be rewarded based on how they help the company.

Future of Talent Communities

I found it interesting to hear Don Tapscott talk at HRTech of how talent communities should be about getting tasks within an organisation completed and not just be a ‘pipeline’ of potential future employees. This reminded me of conversations a couple of years ago about how the future of talent community management would be building a network of flexible, freelance workers, creatives and writers, designers and UX specialists, analysts and data scientists. Keeping them engaged and informed, able to share and help, refer and recommend. And maybe some future employees too.

Business as Usual

Where is this leading us? Well, I think that as ‘social’ business becomes business as usual, and sentiment begins to overtake likes, shares and clicks as a key metric, then having a socially enabled workforce, a proper social engagement strategy and the ability to share the stories and create the content that encourages customers, clients, employees, suppliers and partners to want to be a part of what you do, will become crucial, and the organisations that fail to take advantage of this may well get left behind.

Customer and consumer expectations are rising. They often now have better tech than companies and are changing the way they communicate and collaborate. Smartphone ownership is driving a different kind of consumption. For example, we spend too much time talking about ‘mobile’ recruitment when all our candidates are doing is job hunting – the medium through which they connect and apply is irrelevant to them, convenience and experience matters more.

And employees, your number one brand advocates, are not only using social channels but expect to be able to harness the opportunities they offer in their day to day business roles.

Social Job Hunt 2013

And so it’s into this evolving business landscape that I head off on my Social Job Hunt 2013.

I’ve learned a lot over the last three years, and have gained much knowledge and insight from an ever evolving network of connections covering recruitment, HR, employment law, the future of work, digital marketing, social strategy, branding, FMCG and agency. Not forgetting content creation and curation, community building, encouraging employee and management participation and building reach and influence. A lot has changed, and a lot of change is yet to come.

Judging from some of the conversations I’ve participated in, and from the experiences and insights shared, at various events recently we are certainly living in interesting times.

I’m excited about the future, the opportunities and avenues that are being opened up, and am looking forward to playing my part in helping business navigate these interesting times.

It should be a fun ride. Let me know if you would like to talk…

#HRTechConf – 5 Observations From Across The Pond

HRTech panel

Recently back from Vegas having attended my first HR Technology Conference in the US…a three day extravaganza of exhibitors and demos, content and parties, and most importantly, connections and networking.

I was lucky enough to have an access all areas blogger’s pass so here are some of my random thoughts on what stood out for me as a first time attendee…from a UK perspective, obviously!

1) Its Huge. The Expo was larger than anything I have seen in the UK and the press room alone was big enough to hold a one day conference! Massive scale but still with a personal touch as everyone I came across took the time to network, get to know you and talk enthusiastically about their particular area of expertise/interest.

We’ve all walked round expo floors dodging glances from slick sales people manning the stands and looking to collect business cards and email addresses to help them spam you with messages and calls. I wasn’t sure how this one would go but have to say that every exhibitor I spoke to wanted to engage in a conversation (OK, maybe it was my accent) and talk you through their product, usually displaying a real passion and pride in what they do. That may be because my inbuilt anti-sales radar kept me away from the others.

2) Bloggers Count. At this event bloggers are important. We had our own room, sponsored by Dice, and numbered about 30. I remember Rob Jones writing about how having blogger as opposed to a sales prospect’s job title on his badge at CIPD11 elicited a more ambiguous approach from exhibitors. Not here. Most businesses wanted to engage the bloggers and tell us about their tech and what it could do. They seemed to see us as important conduits of their message. They scheduled meetings with us, made sure we were at all the parties and receptions, sought our views on trends and generally saw us as a valuable, and influential, channel…something UK event organisers should take note of. I really appreciated, and learned from, time spent with Glassdoor, RoundPegg, Success Factors and MTM Recognition.

The impression I got was that bloggers were seen as an important part of the conference and an important link for exhibitors and speakers.

3) Swag and Parties. From some of the blogs I had read covering previous years I was expecting to need an extra suitcase for all the swag on display – I’m a sucker, I really did think there would be t-shirts with slogans like ‘HR chicks/dudes do it better’ ! As it was, amongst the stress balls, pens and flashing party specs I will make use of my Cornerstone on Demand shirt proudly proclaiming that I’m a Millennial at Work (I took a survey, honest) and my limited edition ‘Seize the Night’ Virgin Pulse launch one. Not forgetting my SumTotal iPhone/iPad charger, Glassdoor lip salve, mints and torch/bottle opener key ring, Technomedia USB, Broadbean beer cooler and many more!

The parties…well, I’ve shared what I need to on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! There were many of them, often 3 or 4 on at the same time, offering part networking and part fun. No expense spared either. My top three were courtesy of Reputation Capital/Blogging4Jobs/Technomedia, Jobvite and Virgin Pulse/Starr Conspiracy. If you really need reasons to go to this conference then the parties are as good a good place as any to start!

4) Content. The actual conference part provided me with a mix of great, good and average. The keynotes from Don Tapscott and Jason Averbrook were excellent. The panel sessions were good value too. Some of the breakout presentations were less insightful though – maybe I was spoiled by attending HRevolution the day before as there was certainly more energy, ideas and insight at that event than in some parts of the larger conference. Will be interesting to see how this shifts with Steve Boese now at the helm of HR Tech.

Of course the real big noises of the content show were that perennial fave ‘talent management’ which jockeyed for overuse with the younger rising star ‘big data’. For me both are default terms that cover for a lack of more interesting conversations…would have been good to have a deeper dive into both these areas particularly with reference to the end user. We heard how both Amazon and LinkedIn know more about employees than their employer does but no real insight as to the relevance and impact of this.

For me the three most interesting, and encouraging, technologies at the event were about sourcing & candidate identification, using social reach and conversations to provide something a lot deeper – Dice’s Open Web, and two emerging businesses that didn’t exhibit but were certainly active participants in the conversations – eitalent and entelo.

5) Connections and Conversations. This was a huge part of the conference experience and one of the strongest. Some really great conversations and insights were shared, with the opportunity to have face time with many people who are often just avatars on a social networking platform, being a particular highlight. It’s difficult to put a value on this kind of interaction, but I know that this part made the whole trip worthwhile for me.

As you may have gathered, I enjoyed the experience. The interactions, insights and social aspects were hugely important. Technology is an enabler, a delivery platform that is now embedded in almost every action that HR and Recruiters take on a daily basis. From payroll to on-boarding, rewards to succession planning every professional needs to understand how technology can help deliver an improved and enhanced service, and experience, to current, past and future employees, managers and directors.

This event was a great place to start – I’m planning on coming back next year!

(Image from Trish McFarlane)

Is HR Ready to Get Naked?

The HR Technology Conference opened with a keynote from author, consultant and business strategist Don Tapscott. His talk – Radical Openness – was based on his latest book (of the same name) and looked at the social enabled evolution in business organisation and the challenges and opportunities it offered.

He started with four principles of openness…

Collaboration
Transparency
Sharing
Empowerment

…and then looked at how each are being driven by shifts in technology, social and behaviour.

Some of the key points he talked about:

The age of networked intelligence – we talk about the Information Age but what technology is enabling isn’t just a link to information but to other peoples’ intelligence. Their brain power, insights and analysis.

Talent communities shouldn’t just be about candidates – we should be building and growing these with the aim of helping to get the job done, tasks completed. Instead of using to hire externally we should be using them for collaboration.

Many organisations are not used to the breaking down of tasks – if we are going to effectively use these talent communities as channels of collaboration then we need to change the way we think of work.

The need to deal with business changes – a tweet from Jason Averbrook nailed this as the need to be agile in our approaches to process and technology. He later tweeted that HR was enabled precisely because it spoke HR language and not business language…not sure how that one plays out with the UK audience.

Forget talent inside – a key point about changes to organisation structures around innovation. Again this relates to using outside talent collaboratively. Again it was Jason Averbrook who commented ‘the organisations that only think of talent management as looking at internal talent will have a very hard time competing in the future’.

Customer collaboration and co-creation – too many talk about customer engagement as the holy grail, but the future business should be focused on the customer or consumer as a partner in collaboration.

Leadership can com from anywhere in the organisation – a new type of business structure will lead to a breaking down of traditional hierarchies. Culture should encourage anyone in the organisation to take a lead role on any process or project.

The final thoughts centred on how businesses will cope with openness and specifically how HR will adapt. Some examples were shared of organisations reverting to protectionism in the face of collaboration or co-creation.

Transparency, openness, sharing and collaboration point to a new organisational ‘nakedness’ creating a huge opportunity for HR professionals to play a major role in steering businesses forward.

Is HR ready to get naked….

What I’m Looking For at #HRTechConf

I’ll be spending the next few days at the HR Technology Conference – the first time I’ve been able to go.

I’m lucky enough to be part of the blog squad so have been thinking about what new trends and innovations I’ll be looking for.

In recent months I’ve been at a recruiting leaders round table, as well as two FIRM (Forum for Inhouse Recruitment Managers) conferences, and at all three events current recruiting pain points have been discussed. Invariably they are very similar, whichever group of delegates has been bought together. The key ones, unsurprisingly, have been:

ATS – specifically how to get one to do what you want them to do
Creating a positive experience for everyone who applies
Reducing the volume of unsuitable candidates tied in with better screening
Talent pipelines
Improving internal mobility
Difference between generating names and creating candidates
Hiring for potential vs hiring for now

Many of those are linked to technology so wearing my recruiter’s hat I’m going to be looking at how tech suppliers can help ease that pain. And how they can give a better experience to applicants and candidates.

From an HR perspective I’m keen to see how the employee experience can be enhanced. From attraction and nurturing, through on-boarding and performance management to internal collaboration, personal development, promotion and succession, I’ll be interested to see if what works for the employer is also creating a great experience for the workforce. And how technology can help not hinder.

As the level of connectivity, and the demand for an experience that has a positive, shareable impact, all grow it will be interesting to see if technology that offers a streamlined, cost effective and superior service to the company can also create an enhanced experience for the end user – the job seekers, recruiters and employees.

Gonna Set My Soul on Fire With Some HR Technology

About the time you’re getting the chicken and roasties out the oven this Sunday I’ll probably be starting to jam your Twitter timelines with talk of Gen Y mythbusters, HR improv, hickeys and employer brand (not at the same time I hope), not to mention passion and great places to work.

Yep, that means I’ll be hanging out with some of my US HR friends at HRevolution. (#HRevolution)

And by the time Coronation Street starts on Monday I’ll be immersed in radical openness and workforce analytics. I’ll be at the HR Technology Conference too. (#HRTechConf)

So apologies in advance if I get a bit carried away with this stuff.

I’ll be joining an awesome blogging team and don’t want to let the side down so I’ll do my best to make sense of it all and write about it here.

According to Blogging4Jobs I’m in for 3 days of conference sessions, expo hall madness, and parties galore – sounds like it might be a tough gig, but someone’s gotta try and do it 😉 And this time there’s also a wedding (#ZuCoWedding)

Maybe that’s what Elvis meant with how I wish that there were more than the twenty-four hours in the day, cause even if there were forty more I wouldn’t sleep a minute away

I’ve been to Chicago and Atlanta for HRevolution in the past so I sort of know what to expect, but this is my first time at HRTech – can’t wait to experience it.

If you’re reading this and planning to be there – then let’s make sure we meet up.

And if you’re in the UK I hope I give you some insight into what’s going on through Twitter and this blog.

I promise that what happens in Vegas will stay on the blog…well, the bits you need to know about anyway 😉

Vegas

(Image via @Jeremywaite)

No-one Likes Us. We Do Care.

No one likes us2

As long as I’ve been around the HR profession there have been regular bouts of navel gazing. You only have to look at some of the most-shared HR blogs and join in the usual conference chats about seats at the table, making a difference and the need to change. I’ve facilitated discussions about the purpose and value of HR, whether we should do away with it and how to demonstrate the value.

I’ve often said that I know of no other business function that beats itself up so. I know of few sales people who responded to the PPI mis-selling scandal with a long hard look into their soul to question the job and personal values, and neither did I see a wave of accountants post-Enron self-flagellating over whether the finance function had lost credibility and could no longer be taken seriously as a business function.

Any who did have self-doubt would doubtless strive to show how the profession could improve to stop a repeat, with those guilty of wrong doing not just being wrong, but also rogue outliers and not indicative of the overall standards of most of the profession.

In my experience though the HR function never quite seems to have the same self-belief, which may be why it can sometimes be seen to overreact to perceived attacks on its credibility and value.

Hence my lack of surprise at the brouhaha caused by this week’s online opinion piece from the Daily Telegraph’s Deputy Women’ Editor, Louisa Peacock – It’s Official: Lucy Adams Has Killed off the HR Profession Once and For All.

There are plenty of blogs and responses from both the online community and the online HR media on Peacockgate* and I don’t particularly want to add to the she was wrong/no she wasn’t/yes she was debate, however much of the immediate response seemed to me typical of a group who maybe lack the necessary self-confidence needed to brush this kind of thing off and hence end up taking offence at what they see as an attack.

What’s often missing from this kind of debate is perspective and context, so here are a few observations:

  • The piece did not appear in the business or finance section but in the Women’s section. It queried the career suitability of a profession which is 70% female and was portrayed as a women’s issue and not necessarily a business issue.
  • Although it was written by the Deputy Editor of the women’s section, part of the problem for the HR profession may have been that is it was written by someone seen as one of their own. Someone who learned her trade in the HR media, has covered CIPD conferences and interviewed many leading HR practitioners.
  • It appeared in the online edition of a staunchly right of centre broadsheet newspaper. One who editorially challenge wastage of public funds and the BBC in general, who broadly support Beecroft and the stripping away of red tape around business, are seen as business friendly and often publish opinion writers (Jeremy Warner, Allister Heath) who ideologically appear to favour much looser employment rights. An HR function being profligate with public money would be in the firing line from an editorial viewpoint.
  • It was an opinion piece. Not quite a Littlejohn or Clarkson, but as with many such pieces it is there primarily to provoke debate, promote sharing, create a noise, get traffic to the site. Some criticism has been levelled around the lack of supporting evidence – but this is fairly common with such pieces. Take something that’s happened, frame it slightly out of context and then use it to prove a different point is a modus operandi for many opinion pieces in the media (and some blogs for that matter). Whether it is the journalist or the sub-editor driving the narrative is unclear and hence I wouldn’t necessarily draw conclusions. **

Before I fall too far into the trap of over intellectualising, the reaction to all this displayed a siege mentality, but not necessarily one with the passion and belief that would indicate success…hence the name calling and umbrage.

I think the CIPD missed an opportunity to take the passion and desire to debate that was displayed by its members as a platform to open a wider conversation. After all, the main thrust of the piece was over career choices for young women so here was an opportunity to use it as a springboard to positively showcase the HR profession.

They could have produced a blog almost immediately, not criticising but summarising and showing an understanding of whatever points were being made. Reference the fact that any profession will have its rogue elements and that bad (or less than best) practice won’t be defended or tolerated, but also isn’t necessarily indicative of the rest of the profession.

Then let members debate, adding their views on the CIPD blog platform. No profession is one spokesperson but is the cumulative views of its members and hence they were in pole position to reflect the views of their members on this. Hell, why not look for a right of reply, a follow up post on the Telegraph site espousing the positives of a career in HR, why and how CIPD members make a difference to working lives.

As Neil Morrison says in his recent blog on this issue

…as a profession we should showcase good performance and role models AND we should hold bad practise to account. It isn’t a weakness to admit that HR is a profession in need of improvement, it’s a strength. And when we do, when we show the critical skills of self-analysis, you know what? We make people take us a whole lot more seriously

It’s often said that people rarely talk about good customer service but will always talk about bad customer service, and the same is probably true with HR. There’s plenty of good stuff out there – it doesn’t mean that the bad stuff doesn’t happen, but that you need to work a bit harder to get the good stuff out in the open.

And a healthy dose of context and perspective is a good starting point…

(* If you read this Louisa, I am joshing, treat it as a badge of honour 🙂 )

(** Later that evening I was at an event where the editor of the FT gave a short talk around the journalism profession and how it was reacting to the digital challenges. Listening to some stories from earlier in his career reminded me that not every piece that gets published is necessarily as the journalist originally intended)

5 Benefits of a Transformational Hire

Much as the ‘War for Talent’ supporters may encourage us to believe it, there is little correlation between the football transfer window and the day to day hiring processes of most businesses. There is one similarity though, in that it focuses the mind of an owner/manager on the teams that they have and how they can be improved.

Whilst football people only get to do this twice a year now, companies do it all year round. Even so, it often pays to take time out to think about what you really need for your team, what special ingredient (ie talent) could make a real change and take you on to the next level.

For some it may be that you just need more of the same – more bodies at the coalface to deal with workflows and production efficiencies. Possibly not an on-going need so some loan signings (that flexible workforce thing) may suffice.

Other companies may need to ship in specific skills and expertise to cover areas where they are weak or may lack the edge over their competition.

Most football clubs will have been addressing these two hiring areas over the last few weeks.

But then there is another type of hire – the Transformational Hire.

I’m guessing that most followers of this blog, and of my social profiles, will know that I’m an Arsenal fan – and it’s their piece of recruitment that has intrigued many over the last few days. Despite having a lack of cover in some of their specialist areas, and a definite lack of bodies in their overall first team squad, they’ve gone and hired a major global talent who will transform them in many ways but doesn’t necessary address some of the key and immediate deficiencies in the team. And I, for one, am really excited about it.

Now I’m not a fan of the ‘5 things recruitment can learn from the transfer window’ type of blog so I’m desperately trying not to write one! But one thing that has got me thinking more is how many commentators and players see this one transformational hire as somehow changing their perception of the club.

So focusing on the hire and not the football – what could a transformational hire do for your business?

Statement of Intent

Nothing tells the market, and your employees and customers, that you’re ambitious more than hiring one of the big guns, someone with a successful track record who is at the top of their game. Acquiring an undisputed talent from your field who shares your vision and wants to be part of it can make others sit up and think ‘Hey, they’ve got their act together. They’ve got a plan’

Sending a message to the competition

The chances are that you’ll be hiring someone that the competition wanted. It may well be someone from the competition. It can make others look at you differently. In Arsenal’s case the inference behind Chelsea’s refusal to loan them a player was that after this hire they were seen more as rivals.

Inspiration to existing employees

Undoubtedly many of the younger and emerging players at Arsenal will be able to learn from their new player, but the existing team will also benefit. Most people like working with the best talent, provided the best is someone who has the humility and character to still be part of the team. Whilst some may feel that they will look poorer by comparison, the upside is that others will raise their game, learn and take inspiration from someone new. A new face, particularly one that brings experience, class and a strong work ethic, can galvanise a group of employees, give them belief and help them achieve results they haven’t before.

Talent follows talent

It’s not just the existing employees that are galvanised. Other people in the market will see your business in a new light, as a place where talent can thrive, which enables you to be more bold in team building. Someone who people respect has endorsed your vision. It’s not a coincidence that the last two occasions on which Arsenal ignored pressing needs, confounded expectations and broke their transfer record to buy a fully formed major talent saw the start of the two most successful 10 year periods in their history.

Re-invigoration of consumers

For Arsenal, the signing of Ozil makes commercial sense. He’ll sell shirts and sponsorship deals and put bums on seats. He’ll give supporters who were losing faith something to believe in, handily papering over one or two of the areas that haven’t been addressed. Aside from the legalities of someone taking clients and contacts with them to a new business there’s little doubt that in a competitive business sector, customers and clients often look to where the momentum is, the ideas and creativity, and a transformational hire can certainly bring this momentum.

But, a word of caution

Not every transformational hire works out. During my years as a recruiter, particularly in the recruitment to recruitment sector, I saw many ‘top billers’ and outstanding performers join a new business and flounder.

The infrastructure and support at one company may help some achieve great things, but then they can move to a different one and the same may not happen. The culture and values need to be right, and the reason for the hire must be one that builds on and enhances what is already there. It can’t be relied upon to paper over the cracks and keep an underperforming team afloat.

And these hires take time. The person who could transform your team almost certainly needs to be identified, courted and nurtured. You can’t rely on their CV being emailed your way.

And finally, whilst my enthusiasm for Mesut Ozil is getting me carried away here, let’s not forget that transformational hires need not necessarily always be about the most high profile talent. The Arsenal team that had much success between 1987 and 1994 did not need a big name for a spark…careful hiring of the right catalysts inspired a primarily young group of players to reach great heights.

So go find the transformational catalyst for your business…

Common Sense, Judgement and Social Business

Social Business

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing Brian Solis speak. He’s passionate and insightful, gives good soundbite, and is able to convey some of the intricacies around social business in a way that makes them natural and easy to understand.

He’s recent released a co-authored ebook – The Seven Success Factors of Social Business Strategy – and last night ran a webinar dealing with topics from the book.

Sadly I wasn’t signed up to the webinar but was able to follow the conversation it created through Twitter and the hashtag #7socialfactors – here are five main takeaways from the thread that seemed to be most popular…

“Outcomes are not Likes, not RT’s…outcomes are business benefits”

“People don’t remember words, but they do remember stories”

“Social media is too important to be left to the marketing department”

“Don’t just do something because you read it on Mashable”

“Social Media success lies in focus on engagement, experiences, relationships and outcomes – not channels”

A lot of the wisdom and thinking around ‘social business’ is usually good business practice requiring a mind-set that doesn’t see using social media for business as complex and uncharted just because the technology is new and emerging. As Brian wrote recently:

Social media = technology
Social business = thinking or convictions

We used to talk about internet commerce and internet recruiting, then e-commerce and e-recruiting and now it’s just commerce and recruiting, and the same will go for social over the next couple of years as social business becomes business as usual.

What we really need to make a lot of this happen is common sense and judgement …and as some of the commenters on last night’s thread noted – common sense isn’t always common and judgement isn’t something you can train. As one tweeted:

“Social Media training = what you should do and what you shouldn’t. Judgement is needed in-between. You can’t train judgement”

Maybe common sense and judgement are two things we need to look for a lot more in the hiring process, and also seek to create a social media ‘knowledge hub’ in the business.

After all, social engagement in a business isn’t owned by one person or one department – it’s owned by everyone.

10 Things about Social Media and Business

Social Media Network

 

Over the 4 years I’ve been a regular user of social networking platforms for business I’ve heard, and been asked for, plenty of pearls of wisdom to help newcomers, or those looking to get more involved.

Clearly there are far too many to include in one blog post, but here are 10 of my favourites for a start.

Remember, no saying, slogan or cliché (nor speaker or blogger for that matter) can tell you everything you need to know…only by jumping in, experimenting and trying different things can you ever really experience the joys of social media and find out what works for you…

Your brand is what others say about you, not what you say about yourself

You’d think that everyone would know this by now but sadly not. There’s no point broadcasting air brushed messages about how wonderful you are. Over 80% of your potential, lapsed and current customers and employees will trust the experience of a peer over anything you say about yourself so embrace your satisfied customers and employees, make them your advocates, and let them tell your story.

Brands don’t tweet, people do

I won’t try and take credit for paraphrasing Euan Semple’s must-read book but changing ‘organisations’ to ‘brands’ reminds those using social platforms for business that behind every corporate update, every piece of content, is a person…talking to a person. It may also be worth remembering the words of Adobe’s Head of Social Jeremy Waite ‘It’s no longer about B2B or B2C, it’s now P2P’

If you make people use social media they’ll use it badly

Once a business embraces social platforms there’s often a sudden desire to get everyone in the business using them. As someone who has had to encourage employee participation in a business I say Don’t! Identify your internal advocates and influencers who are comfortable using the tools and start with them. Then encourage, empower and enable all who want to use them. As Content Marketing author Jay Baer says “if you don’t love social media you will suck at social media” so go find the passion in your business.

Social Media – It’s Evolution not Revolution

From carrier pigeon and letter, through post, telephone, telegram, telex, fax, computers, email and mobile to social platforms… business always adapts to the way their customers, partners and collaborators communicate. Social platforms are another stage along the business communication evolutionary cycle.

I don’t think you should have a social media policy – what you are saying is ‘we don’t trust you’

This is one of Neil Morrison’s sayings, and is usually likely to cause apoplexy amongst the lawyers. It’s harsh but it’s true. If you can’t trust someone to use a communication platform properly then what are you doing employing them.

Remember who you are, what you are, and who you represent

This is one of my favourite one sentence social media guidelines. When you take to the platforms it’s often easy to try and entertain and challenge, but if you’re doing it as part of your business role then remember your duty to that role, to peers and colleagues, your profession…and your friends and family.

Get as good as you can be at the platforms you’re already using before you go looking for new ones to try

At every conference, exhibition or event I attend there are always people wanting to know what’s next. Which up and coming platforms are the ones to try out, and what new ways of creating and presenting content can be embraced. My advice is always to get really good on the wagon you’re driving before jumping to a new one. The principles of engagement and reach, content and community, will be the same on whichever platform you try – if you’re not yet good at one then you quite possibly won’t be good at another.

You don’t need to be big to make a big noise

Social media is a great leveller. The big companies may have big budgets but in the land of connect, engage, share and learn it’s the quality of conversation that usually counts. If you’re going to run a twitter campaign for recruitment you’ve got to have good content to put out there, irrespective of size. Check out my coverage of Bromford Group’s #gottalovecake campaign to find out more.

You don’t need 1,000,000 likes. You need 1,000 new customers

This is one of Jeremy Waite’s 80 Rules of Social Media, and one that should never be forgotten. At the heart of your business you need an outcome from social interactions, and producing content that gets liked is only one small part. You need to make sure that what you do on social channels also supports the business objectives. And you should check out Jeremy’s other 79 rules too!

The conversation that never sleeps

Unashamedly this is one of my own sayings and also the title of one of my earliest blogs! Social media, especially twitter, literally is a 24/7 365 days a year conversation and if you’re a global brand, or have an interest in global business or global HR issues, then every minute of every day there will probably be someone saying something that’s deserving of your attention.

 

Can Facebook Really Help Solve Employee Misconduct Problems?

AirNZ

Had enough of debating about social media checking and whether we should use it when making hiring or promotion decisions? In the HR and Recruitment online networks we do seem to spend a lot of time talking about judging others by what they say on social media platforms. Whether it’s hiring managers looking to check out candidates as part of the recruitment process, or job seekers researching companies (and individuals) who they may wish to work for, there is always a healthy debate about how we interpret what others say.

Well maybe Air New Zealand have found a whole new use for it in dealing with ER issues.

They fired one of their flight attendants after she took sick leave to look after her sister. She took them to the Employment Relations Authority for unfair dismissal and AirNZ asked to see her bank accounts and have access to her Facebook page for the days concerned. She resisted as the company didn’t have these when they sacked her, and she felt they were private, but the ERA agreed with the company that she should hand them over to support her claim saying they would provide ‘substantially helpful advice’. As yet we don’t know the outcome.

Employment lawyers and employment commentators in New Zealand have been having their say:

“At a time when we think we are behaving privately or at least within a restricted circle of friends, we are actually effectively on trial”

“And the courts see Facebook as a wonderful asset because all of a sudden not only do we have the potential for pictures and so forth but . . . we can see what time statements were made and pictures were taken”

“Because while this is best evidence . . . doesn’t it creep you out a bit? It feels intrusive and just, frankly, wrong”

“Not only can often a picture tell a thousand words, but in disputes about when things happened Facebook quite often has a time stamp”

Social media updates may land you in trouble with your employers but may also be able to either corroborate or disprove whether you’re guilty of misconduct.

Are they ever really private?

And if not then can they be interpreted and used as an integral part of employee relations?

If so who judges context, syntax, intent or meaning?

And can we really take them seriously?

Let me know what you think…

(Image : Hobbit Safety Video)