Companies need to take advantage of the burgeoning use of social media by employees to find out what they're talking about and to hire the right person with the appropriate skill sets rather than prevent them from accessing social media at work.
“You should know what your employees are talking about — whether they are complaints or nice things about a company — through social media,” says Anusha Shetty, CEO of Bangalore-based advertising and communication agency Autumn Worldwide, at a recent HR seminar in Chennai. Employees are the company’s “brand ambassadors,” she says.
She says that young employees will access the sites via their smartphones even if companies attempt to prevent them from accessing at work.
Thus, she says: “See the opportunities” of growing use of social media instead of trying to block them at work.
The Internet user base in India is rapidly expanding; 65 million people are active Facebook users and over 15 million people use professional social networking sites such as LinkedIn, making it one of the top global markets. Shetty says social media helps HR professionals improve hiring activities by checking what other professionals say about a candidate through references posted on social media.
Social media creates a platform where employees easily, and more casually, brainstorm and come up with insights and business ideas, she adds.
A member of the audience, Vinu Johney, vice-president of sales and marketing at UniMity Solutions, a Chennai-based software and development and IT consultancy, says social media is a great tool to connect company managements to employees.
“Social media-based platforms enable people in an organisation to connect with each other, creating a sense of identity and belonging,” he says. Employees “can discuss, share, generate ideas and thoughts, collaborate across silos, locations, levels in real time and draw from the collective wisdom available within the employee community.”
Shetty and the audience acknowledged that net etiquette and guidelines should be established in each company.