Professional, Personal, or Puerile

Have you chanced upon an employee viewing family pictures from Aunt Sadie or found them chuckling at the latest Internet video sensation while at their desk? My educated guess is that you have and likely have on more than one occasion. Do you think these employees would be shocked to know just how much time they actually spend clicking on every link sent their way? I think so and, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article there are applications that will serve to assist them. Employees, Measure Yourselves author H. James Wilson offers up a few such apps designed to do anything from measure how much time users spend on various websites to those that requests the user enter what tasks were accomplished each day.

Benefits to self-tracking and monitoring include understanding individual habits and productivity and devising the most productive task schedule. For example, some employees may find that they switch to social media, etc... when they feel a lull in their creativity and may find a boost of creativity after an off-task break. Don't believe this? Take a look at this article based on a University of Copenhagen study (the title says it all): Why Wasting Time on the Internet at Work Makes You a More Focused Employee. Others, may find that the pull of social media sites too enticing and find out they are much less productive on days where their YouTube viewing escalates. How will employees feel about being encouraged to utilize web sites that they may view as the company looking over their shoulder? Wilson offers this advice:

   "Many workers might be reluctant to track what they do if they think the company might get access to the information, or use it against them. Companies should emphasize that this type of software usually comes with lots of privacy controls. Workers can often store their data in the cloud, for instance, or locally on their machines. In some cases, they can pause tracking and delete pieces of personal data they choose. Likewise, they can also create a list of sites that they want to track by name and label all the other sites they visit as generic."

A Pinteresting Resume

Okay, so you've updated your profile on LinkedIn, networked with your contacts on Facebook and tweeted about your greatest accomplishments in the hopes that a prospective employer will notice you. There may be another social media resource you haven't though to use, though - Pinterest. In case you've not read any business or lifestyle news stories in the past week you may have missed the latest social media darling. Pinterest describes its web site as an "online pinboard" where users can place pictures and videos they find interesting that relate to a particular topic or theme. According to a Vault blog article, job seekers have begun using Pinterest to tell the world in a creative way about their interest in securing a job. Below is an example of one user's resume (posted by a helpful(?) spouse) that compares his body of work to human evolution:

Unfortunately, Pinterest has yet to catch up with the expanding use of its site and currently does not have a separate category for resumes. This, of course, makes it difficult for job seekers to be discovered. In addition, the theme of the site makes a good fit only for those seeking a position in areas where creativity is one of the foremost skills required. Perhaps a good argument can be made, however, that all positions could benefit from at least a little show of creativity. What would your creative Pinterest resume look like? For my fellow human resource managers: Would this peak your interest and lead you to further explore an applicant with a Pinterest resume as a calling card?

Social Pressure: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Periodically, I like to put on my "outsider glasses" and search through social media sites to find out the latest buzz regarding my organization. I do this to learn what the current perception is of the organization and how aligned our mission and goals are with our actions and results. In the era of networked social media, our customers have the ability to instantly communicate what they like about what we are doing and what they would like to see done differently. Make no mistake about this: they will tweet, post, and blog about it. Prior to the explosion in social media outlets, customers had to be fairly upset with your organization to take the time for letter writing (or even a phone call). Now, it's as simple as pressing the submit or send button. David Kirkpatrick writes in Social Power, an article for the September 26th edition of Forbes, "Both your customers and your employees have started marching in this burgeoning social media multitude, and you'd better get out of their way - or learn to embrace them". 

Okay, so we know that social media is here and must be reckoned with if your business is to succeed. How can you make all those quick bites of feedback work for your organization's benefit? Kirkpatrick states that "customers and employee activists can become the source of creativity, innovation and new ideas to take your company forward". Positive feedback is great to get, it lets you know you are on the right track, but negative feedback is what is going to make your business - that is, if you are open to it and act on it.

Acting on negative feedback means recognizing an opportunity for improving a service, product, or even a process (here's the tie-in to human resources!). It may even mean soliciting suggestions from your customers. Customers and employees appreciate "authenticity, fairness, transparency, and good faith" Kirkpatrick further states.

Take a look at the article and think about how your organization is utilizing social media (or ignoring its existence) and how that reaction is affecting your business. 

Airing the Dirty Laundry

I've just read an article by Christine Crews, VP for the Employers Association Forum, Inc. as published in the Summer 2011 edition of HR Florida Review. The topic of the article is Technology's Impact on HR. It speaks about walking the fine line between allowing access to technology while at the same time managing all the good and bad that can come with it. This is a topic that affects organizations of all types and sizes. Many organizations have email policies and may have policies governing the use of technology but many of these policies are ambiguous and do little in the way of speaking directly to what is current in technology. For example, not many organizations specifically focus on social media within their technology use policy. In fact, some organizations have decided to lock out certain web sites (read: Twitter and Facebook) with the goal of preventing time spent by employees performing such unproductive tasks as updating followers on what they think about the movie they watched last night.

What these organizations may not have considered when creating their policy is the fact that social media cannot be blocked by a firewall or a policy. Social media is not restricted to work hours. What are employees (or for that matter anyone within the organization) posting for all to see during their lunch (on their iPhone, Blackberry, Evo, tablet pc, etc...) or while at home, at a coffee shop, bookstore, and so on? How does a company manage their reputation and maintain an open workplace at the same time? Are there benefits of allowing open access to social media while at work?