Unleashing the power of social media for employee communications

The growing move toward social or 2.0 employee intranets is more than a fad fueled by employee habits outside of the workplace.

Increasingly, companies find it’s making solid business sense to enable and encourage management and employees to use social media to communicate at work, said Marjie Goodman, digital content and collaboration strategist with DEG, a Kansas City-based digital communications company.

A recent study conducted by McKinsey on social media in the workplace shows it can improve employee productivity by 20 to 25 percent. Social media has the potential to contribute $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in annual value for companies that do business in four commercial sectors – consumer packaged goods, retail financial services, advanced manufacturing and professional services, the McKinsey study reported.

Marjie discussed her experience with social media in the workplace at a meeting of the Kansas City IABC Independent Communicators special interest group.

With many options available, adding a social media tool to the suite of tools already available to employees sounds easy, but it’s not, Marjie cautioned. The reason so many companies have yet to make a serious move toward a more social way to communicate with employees is that it’s difficult and takes a strong commitment.

Here are some of the downsides Marjie addressed:

• ·      You can’t rely on an organic “provide and pray” approach to introducing social media across a company.
• ·      You need a solid business purpose for introducing social tools.
• ·      Employees’ needs and wants must be considered when selecting a social media tool.
• ·      A strong leader must champion the cause.
• ·      All supervisors and managers need to buy in, in order to spread it companywide.
• ·      It takes time before social media tools are integrated into everyday business practices.
• ·      It takes a budget – possibly a large one – to create and promote social media.

For companies that embrace new ways to communicate, the benefits of adding social media can be significant:

• ·      It’s an easy way for geographically dispersed employees to stay in touch.
• ·      Millennial employees, an increasing percentage in the workforce, grew up with social media.
• ·      Social media helps combat email overload.
• ·      Social media can replace time-consuming meetings where roundtable-style reporting is the norm.
• ·      It can be integrated into the workflow or the data from key applications the company uses.
• ·      Social media helps employees feel valued and engaged in the business, because they can contribute their ideas in a companywide forum.