Learning Log 4 - Part 3

Evaluation of valuable learning lesson

Social media will keep advancing. It has taken a big part in the HR professionals job and even the department. For recruiting, social media is going to take a big role in that feature. The days of the newspaper job ads are diminishing. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the top three social media sites that are used for promoting the company brand and recruitment. Out of those three LinkedIn is the top leading social media site for job positing and talent recruiting. To increase in employee engagement, HR professionals should consider internal network platforms where all employees can participate. They encourage social collaboration among peers at work. The employee engages with colleagues in more meaningful, helpful ways. From a home page, employees can see feed updates, bookmarks, notifications, and messages. The tools are safe and secure and employees are able to network with all employees.

Tie-in to Manager’s work with HR

As a manger, it important for all HR professionals are trained and educated in different social media tools. They are the first point of contact so being experts in the field will be make it easier to communicate with other employees and managers about the processes taking place in the organization especially about educating someone how to use the internal social media platform. External social media, like LinkedIn should be used for marketing the company brand, recruiting, and searching for top talent. Social media is a great tool to be used for the advancement of the organization and with it being such a powerful tool it is important to use is as a competitive advantage especially is the organization is looking to be a national player in its industry. Managers must make sure social media is used for the advancement of the company and stay up to date with current trends, topics, and issues with social media. 

Learning Log 4 - Part 2

SHRM Connect

Attached is a link to the SHRM Discussion Board:

https://community.shrm.org/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=6aca1aa2-ccd6-4e22-8fdd-348565169d14&CommunityKey=85f521fc-ba03-4926-932f-3e17d3b3827e&tab=digestviewer&SuccessMsg=Thank+you+for+submitting+your+message.

SHRM Connect Feedback

We had another successful week on the SHRM discussion board with classmates and the HR professional, Mary Dillman. The majority of our conversation was about recruiting and the internal social media platforms that took place in the different organizations. LinkedIn has been a key topic in promoting and finding top talent candidates.  An internal social media platform allows employees to post a range of items from presentations or an idea for a new product and receive instant feedback from workers. Employees can even engage in wellness programs and share recipes which helps in employee engagement. Even though there were questions whether this outcome is not powerful as face to face to is certainly engaging and does work. If the employee can see that they can do their job more effectively and efficiently by using social media tools, it will be much easier getting employees involved. This avenue provides another outlet that can help employee receive immediate feedback and engage with co-workers even those not in the same building. The number one factor that employees can take from social media is the privacy is secure in the internal platforms. It is important for HR professionals to use the right tools and platforms to reach their intended audience (external and internal) and meet the business objectives of the company. 

Learning Log 4 - Part 1

Social media tools platform

This week we explored the use of social media tools platforms and how they can connect employees, allow collaboration, identify new talent, generate new ideas, share best practices, etc. To be successful in the business world, companies need social media tools to be successful. Social media has played a big role in Human resources. Now 69 percent of HR departments now use social media channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to assist with the recruitment process (Bennett, 2013). Companies can use the networking site, LinkedIn to post positions. This process makes it easier for the company to get the notice out to the public when jobs become available and for candidates to apply for those open jobs. Companies are also seeing more success using social media to recruit new employees as they can browse the social media sites of potential candidates to determine if he or she will fit in with the company culture (Vassalo, 2015). Companies are even using social media to communicate with employees. Some companies will talk to employees on Twitter to discuss company events so the public can learn about them. Other companies use messaging apps such as Google Hangouts to talk with employees in one location or all over the world.

Building relationships is everything in HR, and there's no better way to do that than using social media. Social recruiting has given HR a leg up in the war for talent. By having more than 2,000 direct connections on LinkedIn and more than 17 million second and third connections, social recruiting power has kicked into overdrive (Lester, 2012). A software called Bullhorn Reach, allows you to post jobs to eight different social networks simultaneously. The tool also allows you to analyze metrics that measure the efficacy of your social recruiting efforts. Internal platforms connect employees and evolve as an internal collaboration space for new idea, spotting talent, solving problems, and generating new ideas (Ulrich, 2012). HR professionals are not only using social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for social recruiting. Enterprise social tools like Chatter, Yammer and Tibbr help businesses tap into the wisdom of every employee (Lester, 2012).  With enterprise social software it is now easier to find and share information. It streamlines work and leverages the wisdom, intelligence and knowledge of the whole organization.

References:

Ulrich, D., W., Younger, J., Brockbank, & Ulrich,M . (2012). HR from the outside in: Six competencies for the future of human resources.

This textbook discusses the six paradoxes of HR. It explains how HR should be run to deliver the best business outcome.

Bennett, S. (2013, October 28). How does HR use Social Media? Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://www.adweek.com/digital/hr-social-media/

This article talks about what HR uses social media for the most. The top five tasks are for teambuilding, onboarding, training, employee communications, and recruiting.

Vassallo, J. (2015, September 26). Social Media's Impact on the Human Resources Industry. Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://www.business2community.com/human-resources/social-medias-impact-on-the-human-resources-industry-01338454

This articles discusses how social media impacts the human resources role and daily activities.

Lester, A. (2012, October). HR puts social media to work through social recruiting. Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://searchfinancialapplications.techtarget.com/feature/HR-puts-social-media-to-work-through-social-recruiting

This article explains how social media benefits and makes the life of a HR professional easier compared to what it was like a decade ago. 

Learning Log 3 - Part 3

Evaluation of valuable learning lesson

Managing external and internal communication is vital for an organization. the organization can view communication as an integrated concept and find areas for improvement within the organization. When developing an effective communication strategy, HR professionals need to demonstrate the connection between business problems and employee contributions on all levels. The right communication audit leads to success and not failure. Communication is not an easy task but finding the right vehicle will bring value to the company. HR must insure the right communication technique is used to have results so that they can be analyzed and bring on change to the organization.  

Tie-in to Manager’s work with HR

As a manager, working with HR would be critical for the overall success of finding the right communication vehicle. From past experiences, using survey monkey is an effective way to send out to the team in getting feedback from the team on what is working and what should be worked on to better improve the flow of work. Surveys can be in the form of multiple choice or free form. With collaboration with HR, the right communication audit shape the communications. When results are all in, as a manger working with HR is very important to analyze the results and what kind of change can be performed. For example, if everyone on the team mentions increase of pay is what they would like to see to better be happy in the workplace, then as a manager that is a conversation to have with HR if it is within the budget to increase everyone’s pay and how will that happen if approved. The communication through the survey help the manager identify what percentage of the team is not happy and what is something they would like to see. Without HR, it is hard to make the change happen. The proper communication gets the right message out of the door and on the way to bigger and better outcomes. 

Learning Log 3 - Part 2

SHRM Connect

Attached is a link to the SHRM Discussion Board:

https://community.shrm.org/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=9690ddcc-2743-41da-9df5-b74922386a2e&CommunityKey=85f521fc-ba03-4926-932f-3e17d3b3827e&tab=digestviewer#bm9690ddcc-2743-41da-9df5-b74922386a2e

The following are screenshots of the discussion:

SHRM Connect Feedback

The class did a great job in discussing a communication audit. The discussion was focused on communication audits and the tools that are used to perform an audit. From the several posts, surveys and focus group were indicated to not be so effective. The reason behind this is that not all employees participate in surveys and they don't represent a good cross-section of the employee population. When surveys are sent many of them are not taken seriously and employees just want to finish with them so they can get back to their everyday work. Focus groups on the other hand tends to turn employees into venting issues they are having with the organization rather then what the organization can do to become better. To be successful in a communication audit, it is important for senior leadership to encourage full participation of employee engagement. For employees to take part in the audit, there needs to be trust with leadership and to have a relationship with them. It is important to listen to employees on what techniques would be the most beneficial to communicate with the organization.