what’s not to ‘like’? why enterprise social media is not...

WHAT’S NOT TO ‘LIKE’? Why Enterprise Social Media Is Not

Working and What Companies Can Do to Engage Employees

Prepared by Melanie Godoy

New York University School of Professional Studies

Division of Programs in Business

Strategic Communication, Marketing and Media Management Department

Graduate Program in Public Relations and Corporate Communication

New York City

April 27, 2015

Capstone Adviser: Mark Misercola

WHAT’S NOT TO ‘LIKE’? Why Enterprise Social Media Is Not Working and What Companies Can Do to Engage Employees

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................... 3

1. OVERVIEW OF ENTERPRISE SOCIAL MEDIA ........................................................................ 4 1.1. Brief definition of Internal Communication ................................................................................................ 4 1.2. What is Enterprise Social Media? ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.3. Advantages of Enterprise Social Media ...................................................................................................... 12

2. PROBLEM DEFINITION ............................................................................................................. 13 3. RESEARCH ..................................................................................................................................... 15 3.1. Design, Methodology and Limitations ........................................................................................................ 15 3.1.1. Qualitative ................................................................................................................................................................ 15 3.1.2. Quantitative ............................................................................................................................................................. 16 3.2. Limitations .............................................................................................................................................................. 16 3.3. Secondary Research ............................................................................................................................................ 16 3.3.1. Case Study Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 30 3.4. Primary Research ................................................................................................................................................. 33 3.4.1. Professionals Survey ............................................................................................................................................. 33 3.4.2. Employees Survey .................................................................................................................................................. 44

4. ANALYSIS ....................................................................................................................................... 49 4.1. Trick or tweat? The problems when the theory is put to practice ................................................. 49 4.2. What are companies doing wrong. ............................................................................................................... 51

5. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................ 53 5.1. What Should Companies Do ............................................................................................................................ 54 5.2. ‘Like’ The Future ................................................................................................................................................... 54

6. RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................ 55 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 56

APPENDIX 1 .......................................................................................................................................... 62

APPENDIX 2 .......................................................................................................................................... 69 APPENDIX 3 .......................................................................................................................................... 95

APPENDIX 4 ....................................................................................................................................... 100


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ABSTRACT

‘Enterprise Social Media (ESN) is the solution to all our problems’ this is what millions

of organizations have been thinking and thousands of experts have been confirming for a while

now. The idea that ESNs will break down silos, improve collaborations, and overall increase

employees’ engagement is what every organization is expecting and desiring. However, this

statement is far from the truth. ESNs continue to be implemented and fail within organizations.

Companies are finding it very difficult to not only encourage adoption, but also to improve

business performance with the networks. (Berg, 2014)

This paper identifies the main reason for ESNs failure: companies are not implementing

the networks correctly. Therefore, employees fail to adopt the network and engage properly. For

this reason, there are 6 steps a company must always accomplish when implementing an ESN in

order to increase the chances of success: (1) Involve upper management (2) Create a detailed

strategy to launch and maintain the networks (3) Integrate ESN with the rest of the company’s

processes and business (4) Identify the right reasons to start using ESN (5) Identify the culture of

your organization and (6) Train your employees constantly.


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1. OVERVIEW OF ENTERPRISE SOCIAL MEDIA

1.1. Brief definition of Internal Communication

In public relations, a company must constantly communicate with its employees. A

company’s internal stakeholders are their employees. Internal communications is a two-way

interaction through messages (Kalla, 2005) and “reflects management’s ability to build

relationships between [employees] at all levels within an organization” (Welch & Jackson, 2007)

“Executives describe internal communication as a way to build better relationships with

employees, so that they feel more engaged in the mission of the organization, will want to remain

with the organization, and will share that enthusiasm with their customers” (Mishra K. E., 2007)

Welch and Jackson (2007) define internal communications “as communication between

an organization’s strategic managers and its internal stakeholders, designed to promote

commitment to the organization, a sense of belonging to it, awareness of its changing

environment and understanding of its evolving aims”(pg. 5). According to The Great Place to

Work Institute a great place to work is a place where employees trust the people they work for,

have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with (Carroll, 2009). Internal

communications’ goal is to achieve a great place to work within the organization.

When internal communications is directed strongly and positively it can build trust and

commitment with employees, which consequently leads to employee engagement (Mishra,

Boynton, & Mishra, 2014). Scholars and professionals have found the great impact effective

engagement has on the productivity of a company. According to the Profit Service Chain

employee satisfaction is directly proportional to customer satisfaction, and hence profitability

and revenue growth (Heskett, Jones, Loveman, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1994).


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James L. Heskett et al. explain the process of the profit service chain:

“Profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty. Loyalty is a direct result

of customer satisfaction. Satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of service

provided by customers. Value is created by satisfied, loyal, and productive employees.

Employee satisfaction, in turn, results primarily from high-quality support services and

policies that enable employees to deliver results to customers”. (Heskett, Jones,

Loveman, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1994) (Paragraph 4)

Employee engagement is also important when creating reputation; public relations’

number one concern when maintaining a good image of the company. “Employees’ knowledge

and skills about both their jobs and the organization provide them with the opportunity to

become organizational advocates with the customers, who in turn can enhance the firm’s

reputation” (Mishra, Boynton, & Mishra, 2014).

“Engagement as a concept has gained substantial interest across academic and

practitioner literatures due to its links to increased financial returns and improved organizational

reputations” (Karanges, Beatson, Johnston, & Lings, 2014). Companies can measure engagement

with how employees show their discretionary effort on the workplace (Frank, Finnegan, &

Taylor, 2004). “Discretionary effort is the performance (certain behaviors or activities) where the

[employee] goes beyond the call of duty, goes the extra mile, or exceeds normal demands or

requirements or expectations of the job” (Dubinsky & Skinner, 2002).

To promote engagement, internal communication professionals have to work with

different channels of communication using various strategies and tactics.


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“To date, various communication channels have been utilized by companies and managers to

communicate with employees, ranging from traditional print publications (e.g., newsletter,

magazines, posters), phone calls, voice mails, and face-to-face communication, to Web 2.0

tools, such as intranet, blog, instant messenger, and internal social networking sites”

(International Association of Business Communicators, 2011).

This paper will focus on internal social networking sites or Enterprise Social Media (ESM).

1.2. What is Enterprise Social Media?

With the explosive growth of social media, its application internally has become a central

focus for many organizations, particularly those that see social media as a conduit for

collaboration and breaking down silos between divisions or departments. While still novel, the

application of social media to employee communications is not new.

The beginning stage of ESN was detected on public sites like Facebook and LinkedIn in

the early 2000s. Employees would use these social networks to interact with co-workers and to

learn about new colleagues (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013). Later on a new phase came

into social networking in companies when workers started using “wikis” on intranets as well as

internal blogging systems (Karanges, Beatson, Johnston, & Lings, 2014). By 2002 Microsoft was

already working with internal blogging and other companies were easily using open source wikis

like TWiki, Foswiki, Tiki Wiki, and StatusNet (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013).

McAfee was the first to introduce the term Enterprise 2.0 or Enterprise Social Networks in 2006

as the use of emergent social software platforms within or between companies and their partners

or customers (Faci, Maamar, Kajan, & Benslimane, 2014). Companies then started migrating

from merely wikis and blogging, to other solutions that could be installed on company servers or


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hosted in the cloud. This software integrated “the full variety of social media functionality,

including blogs, wikis, status updates and microblogs, social analytics, and other collaboration

tools (e.g. uploading and sharing files and other digital resources), as well as social network

features such as profiles and the ability to connect with or follow someone” (Leonardi, Huysman,

& Steinfield, 2013).

Many within the industry are now starting to ask, “Can social media work as well with

employees as it does with external stakeholders?” This paper will attempt to identify the reasons

why ESM is failing to catch on and why employees are not adopting the platform as we would

expect them to. By researching the problems and their causes, this paper will offer possible

solutions and/or alternatives to improve the usage of Enterprise Social Media.

The International Association of Business Communicators says:

“The advent of the Web 2.0 era fundamentally changed the landscape of communication

and the internal communication of companies. Social media tools, such as blogs, bulletin

boards, and social networking sites, which are interactive, social, communal, and

relational by nature, have been increasingly used by companies to promote two-way

communication and employee engagement”. (International Association of Business

Communicators, 2011)

But what exactly is Enterprise Social Media? Enterprise Social Media (ESM), also

known as enterprise social networks corporate, private or internal social networks, are internal

websites that aim to promote collaboration within the hierarchical and geographical structures of

an organization (Awolusi, 2012). Social networking sites are used to promote social interaction

throughout the organization and are used as an internal communication tool. Unlike external


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social media, which is used throughout different platforms for different purposes (ie: Facebook,

Twitter, Instagram, Tumbler, etc), Enterprise Social Media (ESM) uses an integrated social

media site within an organization (such as the company intranet), where many tools and features

are found on the same platform (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013).

In their journal article: Enterprise Social Media: Definition, History, and Prospects for the

Study of Social Technologies in Organizations, Paul Leonardi, Marleen Huysman and Charles

Steinfield (2013) define Enterprise Social Media as:

“Web-based platforms that allow workers to (1) communicate messages with specific

coworkers or broadcast messages to everyone in the organization; (2) explicitly indicate

or implicitly reveal particular coworkers as communication partners; (3) post, edit, and

sort text and files linked to themselves or others; and (4) view the messages, connections,

text, and files communicated, posted, edited and sorted by anyone else in the organization

at any time of their choosing.”

The authors explain that, ESM is a place where social interaction occurs, as opposed to other

internal communication tools where communication just travels from a sender to a receiver

(Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013).

Enterprise Social Media can be divided in the following categories:

1. Content: Articles/wikis, documents, videos/podcasts/slides, rating/voting polls,

comments, news feeds, tags

2. Communication: Instant messaging, statuses, push notices/alerts, third-party integrations


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3. Community: Profiles, activity streams, forums, blog/microblogging, events, following

capability, groups, sharing)

4. Collaboration: Whiteboards, conferencing, task lists, project management, social search,

courses/training. (CGI Group Inc., 2012)

Leonardi et al. (2013) explain that historically ESM has followed three paths:

1. The use of public available sites such as Facebook and Twitter

2. Private implementations of platforms created by open source or proprietary software and,

3. In-house proprietary solutions. (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013)

However, the most commonly used are platforms created by third party software companies

(number 2) due to its availability and easiness to implement.

According to Jess Fee in her article “10 Enterprise Networks to Improve Company

Communication” (2013) the most common Enterprise Social Networks are: (Fee, 2013)

1. Tibbr

a. The profile layout gives space to list professional skills, past projects and people

you've worked with.

b. Lets you follow topics, people, apps and project updates and see who else follows

similar subjects.

c. Third party meeting and video chat services (Skype, Google Hangout)

d. Insights Tab lets you know what is happening in your network

e. Enterprise and personal apps are integrated in the network.

f. Works for desktop and mobile

2. Jive


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a. Similar profile functions as Tibbr

b. Users can follow people, groups and topics

c. Recommendations feature: shows profiles of people you should meet in company

based on interest and expertise.

d. Structured Outcomes feature: define finished and ongoing tasks.

3. Yammer

a. Status updates, pages and “follow” features

b. Employees’ emotions features: detects emotions analyzing sentiments expressed

in network.

c. Works for desktop and mobile

4. Social Cast

a. Centralized workplace and communication center for employees

b. Create public or private groups, share documents and manage projects

c. Task Timeline feature: Shows which tasks are for today and which ones for

tomorrow.

d. Works for desktop and mobile

5. Convo

a. Supports over 33 file types which makes it easy to share all types of files on

conversations.

b. Status updates, news feed, group control.

c. Lets you highlight parts of image or text in order to discuss the content


6. Kaltura


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a. Open source video platform with internet and intranet functionality

b. Can show training videos or product videos

7. Chatter

a. Easily integrated with any social app

b. Chatter Connect: Social Network Experience

c. Chatter in Apex: Create custom chatter experiences


8. Zyncro

a. File management, task assignments and executions, contacts directory.

b. Works for desktop and mobile

9. Socialtext

a. Dashboard is customizable where employees can add widgets like Wikipedia,

Twitter, Gmail or Slideshare.

b. Profile: contact info, project history and skills

c. Creation capabilities for blogs, spreadsheets or wiki pages.

d. Creates a social graph that maps people with similar interests, skills and passions.

10. Connections

a. Homepage function with social stream, profiles, communities, mail, bookmarks,

file-sharing and discussion forums

b. Blogs and Wiki pages

c. Integration with Microsoft applications, such as SharePoint, Windows Explorer,

Outlook and Office



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Finally, and recently introduced of January of 2015.

11. Facebook at Work

a. Same platform as Facebook but for organizations.

b. Same features as rest of Enterprise Social Networks.

c. Allows businesses to create their own social networks among employees.

The focus on enterprise social media, however, is not simply to encourage people to use the

platform more, but to use it to accomplish business objectives more efficiently or effectively”

(Kane, 2015).

1.3. Advantages of Enterprise Social Media

“Growth, productivity and innovation—the three holy grails for any organization—

require ongoing engagement, communication and collaboration among employees and between

employees and their customers” (CGI Group Inc., 2012). Enterprise Social Media helps

encourage collaboration and knocks down internal silos that stand in the way of communication,

progress and innovation. This results in more productive and engaged employees. Knowledge

silos specifically, build up among employees due to distance, daily demands and usual business.

The aim of any organization is to tear these silos down with ESM. (CGI Group Inc., 2012).

In a survey conducted by Jive Software, results show that implementing ESM “can lead

to a 39% increase in employee connectedness, a 29% increase in executive communication and a

30% increase in employee satisfaction” (Srinivasaan, 2011). Also, the use of ESM benefits not

only individuals and teams, but also communities. For individuals and teams, ESM helps in

accomplishing common objectives, and promotes common interests for communities (CGI

Group Inc., 2012).


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Enterprise Social Media offers many advantages to an organization. It mainly promotes

greater customer and employee engagement (Srinivasaan, 2011); accelerates and improves

quality of downward communication (Tech Decision Maker, 2013); encourages upward

communication (Towers Watson, 2011); fosters innovation through knowledge sharing

(Srinivasaan, 2011); gives opportunities for social learning (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield,

2013); it promotes collaboration by giving immediate access to content (Kane, 2015); supports

top management in decision making (Srinivasaan, 2011); and it helps to lessen geographical and

cultural boundaries (Kane, 2015).

Beyond all the positive advantages ESM contributes to an organization’s employees, its

final aim is always to support a company’s final objective. CGI group give a great explanation:

An enterprise social network platform enables employees to better engage, collaborate,

and organize. This, in turn, enables them to more easily capture, generate and integrate

new information and knowledge to deliver the best solutions and achieve the best results.

Such a platform also significantly increases an organization’s speed in providing

guidance, feedback and recognition to enable its employees to grow both personally and

professionally. The end results are reduced operating costs, improved talent acquisition

and retention, and increased competitive advantage. (CGI Group Inc., 2012)

2. PROBLEM DEFINITION

In 2012 market researcher IDC said that Enterprise Social Media was expected to grow a

total of 42% and reach $4.5 billion by 2016. However, by July of 2014, expectations were

lowered abruptly. Now ESM is expected to have a growth rate of 23% and reach $2.3 billion in


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2018 (Rosenbush & Boulton, 2014), having a fall of about 50% in their forecasts. Why did this

happen? Simply because organizations are not adopting SME as expected.

In theory, enterprise social media is a great tool for internal communication professionals

to use to engage employees, promote collaboration, knock down internal silos, and to

consequently contribute to the organization’s overall goal. However, in practice the theory does

not seem to be as effective. According to research firm Gartner, “80 percent of social business

efforts will not achieve intended benefits through 2015” (Gartnet, 2013).

When enterprise social media fails to adapt in a company, the problem is generally

viewed as a failure to collaborate and engage employees so that they will become more

productive. . Therefore, the following question rises: Why are enterprise social networks not

catching on?

The most probable explanations, based on both research and anecdotal evidence from

communications and technology professionals who manage internal social media platforms, are:

• Platforms are not user-friendly.

• Companies are using the wrong delivery methods to employees.

• Employees are not encouraged properly to use the new capability.

• Companies are not creating enough information to share on their platforms.

• Employees are scared to share information in an ESM platform.

• Employees are too busy or overwhelmed with other internal platforms, such as email,

which is competing for their attention.


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• Top management does not adequately promote their internal network or the ESM

platform.

• ESM is not used as an official channel for exchanging information or dialoguing.

3. RESEARCH

3.1. Design, Methodology and Limitations

Primary and secondary research serves as the basis for this report. Secondary research

was made through a compilation of information and analyses of journals, books, case studies,

and news articles that where used to identify the following:

3.1.1. Qualitative

• What are companies saying about ESN?

• What are professionals saying about ESN?

• What are the best and worst practices?

• Analysis of real examples (case study analysis)

• What are the solutions to common problems?

• What is a good implementation of ESN?

Primary research was also conducted through two different surveys. The first survey targeted

employees at large and medium organizations. The second survey targeted organizational

communications professionals or human resource practitioners that focus on internal

communication.

Surveys were used to collect the following data:


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3.1.2. Quantitative

• What are employee’s perceptions on ESN?

• What are professional’s perceptions on ESN?

A snowball method was used for surveys, where personal contacts and connections from

those personal contacts where contacted and requested to fill out the survey. Snowball sampling

is a technique in which the researcher asks previous respondents to give referrals for other

possible participants (Fink, 2003). Likewise, surveys where posted in various LinkedIn groups

directed at internal communication professionals around the world.

3.2. Limitations

Limitations during research were the lack of prior researched information specifically about

the problems of ESN adoption on companies. Likewise, and due to the absence of research on

the topic, most information has been gathered though online sources as oppose to journals and

books. Similarly, time and resources is another limitation since it directly affected the number of

participants that this research received. A sampling of 400+ participants would have been the

ideal number of participants. However the results are based on a lower number of results. The

number of participants for this research can be found on the primary research chapter of this

document.

3.3. Secondary Research

“In spite of the hype, where enterprise social networks (ESN) are concerned, not all that

glitters is gold, and whatever precious metal it is made of has tarnished, leaving adoption rates

far below what social media Kool-aid drinkers would have expected” said Internet marketing

consultant, writer and social media author Paul Chaney. Similar statements are found throughout


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the web, bloggers, experts and professionals are coming out to not only state that adoption of

ESN is far more less than expected, but also the reason as to why this is happening.

According to research firm Gartner, 80 % of businesses that start using social networks

will fail through 2015 (Gartnet, 2013). Gartner’s study reveals that many big companies are

embracing internal social networks however, they are not getting much from them (Faci,

Maamar, Kajan, & Benslimane, 2014). Also, a Microsoft study conducted across 31 countries

and almost 10,000 “information workers” show that adoption of ESNs in the workplace is still

below 20% (Duvauchelle, 2014). This shows that “despite this social ‘fever’ and growing

interest in Web 2.0, enterprises are still un-sure about its return-on-investment” (Faci, Maamar,

Kajan, & Benslimane, 2014)

Oscar Berg (2014), a Digital strategist and Enterprise Collaboration expert, explores the

adoption failure ESNs are having. “Many organizations see no big change in the existing ways

of working after deploying social tools or social collaboration initiatives. Not only has it proven

to be quite difficult to make people adopt these tools. It has also proven to be difficult to achieve

any significant improvement of business performance” (Berg, 2014). Juan Carlos Perez (2014),

news editor for IT World specialized in e-commerce, Google, and Web application development

also believes the ESN softwares are failing. “In a great IT industry irony, enterprise social

networking (ESN) software, designed to boost interaction and collaboration, is often ignored by

users and ends up forgotten like the proverbial ghost town with rolling tumbleweeds” (Perez,

2014).

Still, experts are trying to define the reasons why companies are failing to adopt ESM’s.

Carol Rozwell, a Gartner analyst explains: "Too often we see companies whose leaders are


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thrilled with the technology, and they see how quickly consumer social networks like Facebook

have grown. They think they'll accomplish the same growth rate and participation if they

purchase the right tool [however,] that approach doesn't work." (Perez, 2014). Gartner’s

prediction that 80 percent of businesses efforts on using social networks will not achieve their

intended benefits through 2015 shows that this failure is due to inadequate leadership and an

overemphasis on technology (Gartnet, 2013).

Charlene Li, an Altimeter Group analyst, a firm that studies social media and other

technology trends, thinks that "it's not a situation where if you build it, they will come. That's not

how it works at all (…) adoption definitely continues to be a problem." (Perez, 2014). Josh

Breiger a marketing specialist believes that with ESN there is room for improvement, and that is

illustrated by the fact that 80% of businesses will not achieve their intended benefits (Breiger,

2014). He also states; “Although there are many reasons determining if enterprise social

networks will ultimately have a successful adoption, a big reason why enterprise social networks

fail is their inability to get off the ground (Breiger, 2014).

Nevertheless, experts believe that the challenge is a process that still needs to be worked

upon. Forrester Research analyst, Philipp Karcher says: “The growth of the enterprise social

software market certainly hasn’t been what it was initially hyped. The market is maturing amid

consolidation and integration” (Rosenbush & Boulton, 2014). “It's still a challenge, and will be

for a while. It's going to be a long journey" he says (Perez, 2014).

But why exactly are ESNs not working? Research from blog posts, journal articles and news

articles from experts suggest consistent reasons as to why ESNs are not being adopted correctly.


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They are: (1) a lack of cultural identification, (2) companies don’t identify the right reasons to

start using ESN (3) upper management is not involved (4) organic adoption does not work (5)

ESN has no integration with the rest of the processes (6) there is no strategy to launch and

maintain the networks (7) there is a lack of training (8) companies start big as opposed to small

(9) there is a resistance to change and, (10) ROI is not determined correctly.

1. Lack of Culture Identification

“What type of culture? What can we do? Pit an internal project against the culture and the

culture will win every time, hands down,” says Kevin Jones, organizational strategist, consultant

and speaker (Jones, 2012). Jones affirms that culture is the steering wheel of the company and

you can come up with the best tools, process, or product that can even save millions of dollars,

but if it doesn’t fit in with the values of the culture of the organization there is a good chance it

will not work (Jones, 2012).

Oscar Berg agrees with Jones and explains that to get value from the social networks, the

organization must first understand the employees’ needs, tasks and situations. Once this is done

the organization can carefully consider, select and design the right social technology that will

help them get their work done (Berg, 2014). Therefore, trying to impose a tool that functions

differently from the employees’ normal workflow and communication habits will result in low

adoption and eventual abandonment (Duvauchelle, 2014).

Dion Hinchcliffe, chief strategy officer at Dachis Group, a company that offers solutions to

help companies optimize their social marketing activities says:


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“We forget at our peril that collaboration is a fundamentally human activity. This implies that

any use of enabling technology without taking into account how people actually conduct

their work, their inclinations to share information and interact with each other, and in

particular how the proposed technology will empower them and alter their collaborative

behavior for the better/worse, is bound to disappoint” (Hinchcliffe, 2013).

According to Gartner, a successful social enterprise network is implemented 80% through

organizational culture and 20% through technology (Cooke, Why did my Enterprise Social

implementation fail? – Part 1, 2014).

2. Companies don’t identify the right reasons

One of the main problems encountered is that organizations throw themselves at ESNs with

no identification of the real reason as to why they are choosing to join. ‘Everybody else is doing

it so why shouldn’t we?’ is the common thought process. Berg (2014) explains that companies

have no awareness about the problems and challenges that can be addressed with a social

technology; “The organization just wants to show others that it has also jumped on the

bandwagon”. Likewise, Peter Cooke, Enterprise Social Specialist believes that “purchasing a

solution without identifying and validating the mid to low level problems or processes for which

it would support, might be a little too keen at first” (Cooke, Why did my Enterprise Social

implementation fail? – Part 1, 2014). Cooke explains that if users don’t see how the network

supports their everyday tasks, the usage of ESNs will continue to drop.

Another wrong reason is to use “Social as a crutch” like Berg says. He states that companies

are using ESN to support other features like the intranet, and to see if in this way people go in

and participate (Berg, 2014). “If social technology is seen merely as a tactic to improve adoption


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of an intranet, it will have no impact on business performance whatsoever” (Berg, 2014). Any

project that does not have an impact on business is bound to fail. According to organizational

strategist Jones, ESN is not just a social platform: “Social technologies within organizations are

about working differently to get the job done better, and more efficiently and effectively than it

could be done before. It is about improving business” (Jones, 2012).

Jones explains that the reason to choose ESN is higher than just using a social tool. He talks

about the Umbrella Principle. This principle states that when organizations focus on certain

higher level projects, the lower order things will work naturally. Therefore, Jones says that social

is a result of the work and the environment not the product itself. (Jones, 2012). “Social is a

lower-order principle. But if we focus on the higher order, the collaboration, and improving the

way we work and communicate, the social will happen” (Jones, 2012).

News Editor Perez explains that the key to success is to have a "purpose-driven" ESN, which

is, based on choosing the correct reasons to start the network. In his article Many employees

won't mingle with enterprise social software Perez quotes analyst Li from Altimeter Group about

successful programs: "Successful programs have clear prescriptions on how the ESN should be

used and why," she says “they're also clear on the specific problems the ESN is meant to help

solve, whether it's to make it easier for employees to find experts among their colleagues or to

reduce the reliance on email for communications” (Perez, 2014).

3. Upper management is not involved

According to strategist Jones, the first failure on ESN is not identifying the type of culture;

the second failure is not including management. “Remember where I mentioned that culture is

the steering wheel? Guess who holds that wheel firmly in their hands? Management. Whether


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they realize it or not, they do. They set the tone,” (Jones, 2012) Jones says about the importance

of management inclusion. Likewise, Fayez Alqahtani, Helen Partdrige and Jason Watson,

writers of Organizational support and Enterprise Web 2.0 adoption: a qualitative study agree

with Jones stating that “when Web 2.0 is endorsed and supported by management, employees are

motivated to adopt it (Watson, Partdrige, & Alqahtani, 2014). The study made by Alqahtani et al

suggests that if management does not endorse ESN, it will be perceived as overhead and will not

be adopted by employees (Watson, Partdrige, & Alqahtani, 2014). According to Gartner

Research Director Larry Cannell organizations shouldn’t underestimate the power of executive

support. “Gaining executive buy-in and using their participation in the enterprise social network

to set an example for the rest of the company is essential to the success of the project,” Cannell

says (Burnham, 2013). It is also important for managers and top executives to actively participate

and endorse the use of the ESN (Perez, 2014). “Business execs need to understand the goals and

support them. Senior management is key to motivating people to participate in these

communities" says Cannel (Burnham, 2013).

Jones also explains that the more management is involved and advocates the use of the ESN,

the more it will be adopted and embraced by employees; its is a direct correlation (Jones, 2012).

“The greater the extent to which the executives are involved with the technology, the easier it

will be for employees to be involved as well—and not only with the technology, but in being

open, transparent, and trusting”. (Jones, 2012) News Editor Perez agrees by saying that the

participation of managers, informal team leaders and top-level executives is crucial, because

average workers will take their cues from them (Perez, 2014). He quotes Carol Rozwell, a

Gartner analyst: “The leaders have to model the behavior they want others to mirror. And once


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people start dipping their toes in the water, managers have to be there validating their efforts, by

acknowledging their participation with gratitude (Perez, 2014).

4. Organic adoption does not work

Companies continue to expect employees to understand and adopt ESNs organically.

Strategist and Expert Berg affirm that companies “expect that new and smarter ways of working

will “automagically” emerge. Since people have asked for these tools, there is no need to support

them” (Berg, 2014). He continues explaining that adoption and change don’t happen alone.

Employees need a clear vision, incentive and support to start and continue using the software.

(Berg, 2014) “They need to see management walking the talk and talking the walk. (…) There

are no silver bullets. (…) The change journey doesn’t end when the technology has been

deployed – that’s when it starts” (Berg, 2014).

Kristin Burhman interviewed Gartner Research Director Larry Cannell for her article 3

Common Enterprise Social Network Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them), Cannel says: “Too

many people just assume that an enterprise social network [ESN] deployment is going to be

simple and that people will pick it up quickly," he continues, "and that's just not the case. Social

is different from any other project you may have deployed, and you need to put in place certain

measures to be successful" (Burnham, 2013). Cannell emphasizes his statement: "Just because an

enterprise social network is simple and easy to use doesn't mean you can build them and people

will come. These tools are going to change how people work and you need to prepare them for

that." (Burnham, 2013)

Expecting that ESN adoption will come from the ground up and spread virally is generally

proven to be false. A project must be approached with a clear adoption strategy, and the chances


24

of success will be higher (Broadvision inc. , 2012). Enterprise Social Specialist Cooke explains

that various organizations assume that users know how to use social technologies, and because of

this adoption will be natural. Although this statement is true in our personal lives, he says we

can’t expect the same in an organizational context. (Cooke, Why did my Enterprise Social

implementation fail? – Part 1, 2014) “This is not a duck to water scenario” Cooke says. (Cooke,

Why did my Enterprise Social implementation fail? – Part 1, 2014)

Expert Jones explains in his online book 15 ways to fail at social business (2012) “each

person must have his own ‘why,’ or multiple purposes, for lasting change. Even if it is dead

simple, he simply won’t pick it up. In fact, if a task is difficult but there is a burning purpose, an

individual will usually figure it out” (Jones, 2012). Likewise, Gartner analyst Rozwell says:

"You're trying to start up new behaviors, so when people take these new steps and do what you

want them to do, it's going to be uncomfortable for them at first, so reinforce their actions"

(Perez, 2014).

5. ESN has no integration with the rest of the processes

Not integrating ESN into the rest of the processes will result in the network’s failure. Usually

the organization buys a social networking platform from a vendor without identifying and

defining how it will integrate with the other tools and platforms in an organization (Berg, 2014).

According to News Editor Perez, experts say it helps when the ESN software is integrated with

the other tools employees use on a daily basis, ie: their email, calendars, their CRM and ERP

suites or their office productivity applications (Perez, 2014).

For Alan Lepofsky, a Constellation Research analyst, the connection of ESNs with business

processes is essential. "If an ESN is not integrated with tools like file-sharing, CRM, marketing


25

automation, support tracking or project management, then it becomes just another tool, and that

is where adoption issues begin" he said via in a email interview with news editor Perez of IT

World (Perez, 2014). Marketing Specialist Breiger emphasizes the importance of integration of

the ESN with current systems and that companies should understand that any system that is

integrated with Email will, most likely, lead to an increase in effectiveness (Breiger, 2014).

“The number one key to implementing any internal social business initiative is to

integrate it into the workflow. I have been preaching this for years and cannot stress it enough”

(Jones, 2012) says Jones on his online book. Cannell supplements by saying: “Another key to

success is embedding the social network into everyday workflow. Managers need to ensure the

tools are part of how they get their jobs done every day, rather than just being destination sites”

(Burnham, 2013).

Jones quotes Laurie Buczek about an Intel Employee blog posted on August of 2011,

“Culture will change as a result of the pervasive use of social tools. Lack of cultural change is

not social business’s biggest failure. The biggest failure is the lack of workflow integration to

drive culture change” (Jones, 2012). Therefore, if social networks are not integrated into the way

employees work, it wont become a part of the way they work hence, it wont be used (Jones,

2012). Yonina Eisenberg, in her post Predictions for the corporate work environment in 2014,

says “Stand-alone collaboration platforms and pure social business tools will eventually become

obsolete,” (Eisenberg, 2013) which is why platforms need to be integrated in order to be able to

achieve its main goal.

6. There is no strategy to launch and maintain the networks


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Enterprise social specialist Cooke explains the importance of strategy when launching ESN.

Cooke says that if there are no clearly defined outcomes and desires of what the organization is

trying to achieve, there will be no real measure of success. (Cooke, Why did my Enterprise

Social implementation fail?, 2014). Analyst Li from Altimeter Group says: "Many ESNs aren't

living up to their full potential because they've been implemented as a technology and not as a

business strategy" (Perez, 2014).

Without a business strategy and goals many experts say ESNs will surely fail. Most

express that there has to be a business goal when implementing an ESN, and that this goal has to

be clear to employees – they must see how the software can help them do their jobs better”

(Perez, 2014). However, according to strategist and expert Berg, many organizations don’t

understand the importance of business goals. (Berg, 2014) “Nor does it explore how to use the

features or how the features need to be designed in order to support work in the best way.

Therefore it has no plan on how to make use of these features to improve current ways of

working or how people communicate” (Berg, 2014).

Internet marketing consultant, writer and social media author Chaney explains that ESN

does not exist and survive on its own. To be useful it must support business objectives (Chaney,

2014). Chaney says, “I'm not certain that all ESNs in their current form are well suited to serve

enterprise organizational needs” (Chaney, 2014). Craig Malloy agrees with Chaney in his article

Innovating With Enterprise Social Networks: How to Avoid a Ron Burgundy Moment: “One of

the biggest failure points in the ‘80 percent of all ESN’s are a flop” statistic is that a general

company-wide rollout does not immediately solve a burning business problem that your team

can rally behind”. (Malloy, 2013).


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When talking about her predictions for the corporate environment Eisenberg expects that

without the proper tool and space to collaborate, one of two things will happen for social

business tools: either they will be eliminated, or they will become a hub that brings together all

the information that the various work spaces hold,” (Eisenberg, 2013) and the last one will show

a great use of strategy and integration. Alqahtani et al agree on the importance of strategy in

order to promote adoption and explain that developing Web 2.0 strategies involves planning,

securing resources and guiding the adoption (Watson, Partdrige, & Alqahtani, 2014), “this

prevents employees from perceiving Web 2.0 as ‘an added thing to do’ or its being used by only

a ‘few people [who] are really passionate about it’” (Watson, Partdrige, & Alqahtani, 2014).

7. There is a lack of training

Gartner Research Director Larry Cannell explains: "It's not like you can just turn on a

Yammer or Chatter network and people will come. Employees need to know what they're used

for and why they should care (…) they need motivation and an understanding of why they should

want to participate." A clear understanding of this is key to gaining adoption. (Burnham, 2013).

Jones recommends in his online book that organizations should focus on improving work, help

employees overcome their fears, and work with them to understand that is not just a social

platform, like Facebook, where you show what you eat, but actually it’s a tool to help them be

smarter at work (Jones, 2012). “Once you break through the emotional barrier, they will first

understand and then embrace” (Jones, 2012).

Cooke explains in his article that various companies have “teething issues,” which usually

come from employees not understanding how to use the tool (Cooke, Why did my Enterprise


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Social implementation fail?, 2014). “Not that they didn’t know how to ‘like’ a comment, it’s

about understanding how to use it at work. What [is] missing is communication of purpose and

vision, and support for the transformation” (Cooke, Why did my Enterprise Social

implementation fail?, 2014). Breiger enhances this thought by stating that it is important to give

employees special attention and dedicate more time to help them. Without this additional help,

workers will not put in the necessary time to learn the system (Breiger, 2014). Perez agrees as

well: “It's important to provide proper training to show employees how they can switch some --

or many -- email and IM interactions over to the ESN software, and be more productive and

efficient” (Perez, 2014).

8. Companies start big as opposed to small

Malloy explains in his article that companies that decide to use ESNs often want to

implement a “one shot, massive company wide rollout led by IT that guarantees to “transform

the way you work” (Malloy, 2013), However, this strategy will just increase the chances that the

ESN will fail. As Cooke puts it: “Here’s a simple rule… A product that is simple to use with

loads of features, doesn’t equal relevance and value to a user, unless there is context. The more

features there are initially, the more the user will be overwhelmed and dismissive of the value of

its use (Cooke, Why did my Enterprise Social implementation fail? – Part 1, 2014).

Breiger claims that the beginning stages critical for a successful ESN. He says it is vital to

have a system with limited setup up and a limited learning curve or risk employees never getting

started (Breiger, 2014). This is why, Malloy recommends to “start small, show a positive result,

gather some passionate advocates based on that success, implement a little bigger project, keep

the success rolling, round up some more raving fans and keep going” (Malloy, 2013).


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9. There is a resistance to change

“A big reason new programs fail is people are resistant to change. Even if a new way of

working or thinking is easier, employees often prefer less effective and habitual

practices. Employees often question new tools and wonder what is in it for them” says expert

Breiger (Breiger, 2014). According to Broadvision, for many organizations, the cultural change

of implementing an ESN creates a bigger challenge than actually choosing the right tools and

getting management to be involved. Change requires leadership and example setting from senior

leaders. This is a change that many managers struggle to make, but if they embrace it, their teams

will too (Broadvision inc. , 2012)

Jones points out that companies are asking people to change habits, which is incredibly

difficult—especially when everyone around has the same habits (Jones, 2012). “It is easy to

transition to Facebook when your family has all gone there to communicate and post pictures and

videos. It is much more difficult to change your habits in an organization when few are doing

what you want to do, or there may be a fear of retaliation” (Jones, 2012).

10. ROI is not determined correctly

In a Forrester survey of employees responsible for social initiatives, 39%, said that they

were tracking the business impact of social platforms. Only 12% of respondents looked at the

impact of social platforms on sales and revenue (Rosenbush & Boulton, 2014). To define success

it is important to measure the value of the ESN. According to Clark Quinn and Carrie Young in

their article How to Measure the ROI of and Enterprise Social Network: “To measure these

values, companies need to create and follow a process that helps them discover, measure and

articulate both tangible and intangible measures of success (Young & Quinn, 2014).


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Gartner Research Director Cannell recommends companies avoid setting the wrong

parameters for ROI; "Your ROI argument is tied to how you expect to deploy the software (…)

Sure, you can focus on things like how many people sign up and post, and that's OK. But if you

focus on the individual deployments and making employees actually like the tool, then more

relevant metrics come into play" (Burnham, 2013). Jones explains: “A return-on-investment

analysis is important. But realistically, with these types of initiatives, it is a complete guess. So

many other uncontrollable factors and unforeseen events might happen that can throw those

numbers off in an instant, never to return to normal” (Jones, 2012).

3.3.1. Case Study Analysis

The Humana Success

Humana is a Lousville, Kentucky, healthcare company that sells and administers health

insurance. Humana has over 13 million customers and over 52,000 employees. In 2013 Humana

ranked 23rd on the Fortune 500 (Wikimedia Foundation, 2015).

In 2008 Humana decided, like many other companies, to start using internal social networks

for their company. Social media was on the rise and the team of Humana’s internal Chamber of

Commerce studied outside trends to identify the potential of an ESN for internal use (Azad,

2015). Their main reason to decide and test it was to improve collaboration and communication

(Azad, 2015). Throughout 2009, Humana experienced the use of ESN on the company as well as

the existing platforms out there; they started with Yammer (Lombardi, 2015).

In Simply – Communicate’s Case Study, Buzzing in Healthcare: Humana’s ESN story, Jeff

Ross, Community Manager for Enterprise Social Media in Humana said “It started with just a


31

couple of teams working together from the innovation side of the house. We wanted to

experiment with the idea of enterprise social networking (ESN) in general, and see if there was

something useful in it. We let it grow virally for about a year.” (Lombardi, 2015). During that

year of testing the network got about 3000 members with hundreds of posts and dozens of groups

(Miller, 2013). With this success, Humana decided to find a permanent tool that would help them

flatten hierarchies, solve problems quickly, encourage innovation, build spirit and break down

silos (Miller, 2013). After various considerations where the company looked closely at IT’s

feedback and analyzed different features and costs, Humana decided to go with Social Cast.

Humana called its ESN “Buzz” (Lombardi, 2015). Buzz was officially launched on 2010.

Ross says: “we say that we have two official purposes for Buzz: the first one is to help us

accomplish our business objectives, and the second one is to help us establish positive

interpersonal relationships with others around areas of mutual interest.” (Lombardi, 2015)

Humana’s strategy is based on (1) integration, (2) upper management participation (3) training

and (4) slow and steady growth.

(1) “Humana’s Buzz is integrated deeply into the employee experience in their natural

workflow” (Azad, 2015). Buzz is part of the intranet-landing page and it has 200 SharePoint

sites (Azad, 2015). Both internal and external communications are completely integrated with

Buzz. When there are new internal campaigns, the communications department meets with the

ESN’s team to include those campaigns on Buzz (Lombardi, 2015). The same happens with

external messages; all information that is presented externally or any external news that affects

the company is posted on Buzz (Lombardi, 2015). Buzz is part of the overall communications

strategy.


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(2) Upper management’s participation is greatly engraved on Buzz’s day to day. Bruce D.

Broussard, Humana’s CEO is a strong Buzz’s advocate. He talks and posts photos about the

experiences he has in every office visit. He posts photos when he is exercising to promote

physical fitness, a very important issue in Humana. The CEO even answers posts and is

constantly active on Buzz (Lombardi, 2015). “Broussard also has a monthly leader call where he

uses Buzz to capture the narrative of those calls. After each quarterly earnings announcement he

holds an internal call with employees by using Buzz to enable open participation where

employees can ask questions pertaining to the quarterly results” (Azad, 2015). The CEO’s

involvement helped secure the participation of senior leadership and encourage better

contributions from middle management, which was little to none before the CEO became

actively involved.

Now leaders use Buzz for Q&As in town halls and other important events and presentations

to ask specific questions, get regular feedback and use Buzz as a common place to interact with

employees (Lombardi, 2015). “Before our current CEO came on board, without senior leader

participation, many employees – especially other leaders - were hesitant. With the new CEO and

subsequent leadership involvement, that is no longer the issue it once was” (Lombardi, 2015)

Ross says.

(3) Training is also important to maintain and attract new members. “To encourage passive

users to become active participants, Humana creates training opportunities regularly. These are

mainly virtual training or in-person classroom setting sessions that tend to be established for

specific business areas or departments” (Lombardi, 2015). For new members the company gives

demo videos and periodic programs, a welcome letter with a basic intro, helpful information,


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links, encouragements (Lombardi, 2015) and even the “Buzz 10 Commandments,” which states

the basic rules for the system (Miller, 2013).

Humana also provides mentoring for leaders who want to get more involved and more

familiar with Buzz (Lombardi, 2015). Finally, for less active users and to encourage employees

to come back to Buzz Humana targets specific communications to re-engage them individually

(Lombardi, 2015).

(4) The last strategy Ross talks about is slow and steady growth. Ross says that “a big

corporate-wide launch, where everyone can join today or this week, would be chaotic. Instead,

find small pockets of groups willing to adopt it initially, and continue to expand regularly from

there” (Lombardi, 2015).

Currently, Humana’s Buzz is a huge success. Buzz has almost 30,000 Humana members that

are active users, “over 1,200 groups – both business and non-business related – have been

created, and around 6,000-7,000 posts are generated each week” (Lombardi, 2015).

3.4. Primary Research

3.4.1. Professionals Survey

A survey was made addressed to professionals in the field of communications and human

resources specializing in internal communications. The survey received 28 responses from

professionals around the world. 91% of the professionals are between the ages of 23 – 38. The

results are as follow:


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1. In your organization, ESN is used for: (check all that apply)

82% of professionals use their ESNs to inform employees about what is going on in the

organization. Leaving feedback, encouragement on project collaboration and give employees

ways to meet each other with a percentage below 40%.

2. How would you characterize your experience with enterprise social media?

Although 36% of professionals characterize their experience as good, a combined 61% of

professionals have had a fair or poor experience with enterprise social media. Only 4% have had

a very good experience.


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3. How long has your ESN been in place?

Most professionals have had their ESNs in place between 1 – 5 years, being the majority

between 3-5 years of usage at 36%.

4. Your ESN is:

Professionals use either an open source platform or an in-house platform created specifically for

the company, percentages are 43% for both. Only 14% use a public site as an ESN.


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5. How do employees access your company’s ESN?

44% of professionals have their access to their ESNs via their intranet, while 22% have it on the

company webpage.

6. Where is your ESN positioned on the front page of the intranet?

36% of the professionals who use intranet have the ESN positioned in the top right corner of the

intranet.


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7. Do employees have to opt-in to access it?

56% of respondents say that their employees have to opt-in to access, while 44% don’t have an

opt-in option.

8. How engaged are senior leaders in using the ESN?

56% of senior leaders are sometimes engaged in using ESN, while 32% are rarely or never

engaged. Only 12% of senior leaders are engaged most of the time and 0% are always engaged.


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9. Does your CEO use ESN?

52% of respondents say their CEOs use the company’s ESNs, while 48% say they don’t use it.

10. How engaged is your CEO on ESN?

While CEOs might be using the ESN, only 16% say they use it most of the time. 24% say their

CEO use the network sometimes, 40% say rarely and 20% say they never use it.


39

11. What do you to promote the ESN in your company? Check all that apply

48% of professionals say they create engaging content and they participate in the platform in

order to promote their ESNs. 35% say they send emails and 30% say they create discussions and

projects. Likewise, 26% of them say they create internal campaigns to promote usage. 30% of

respondents say they just hope employees will start adopting it. Only 22% encourages managers

to promote and use ESN and only 13% asks top management to participate.

12. What best describes your thoughts? (Check all that apply)

58% of participants believe that employees will adopt ESN in time. 46% believe it is not for

everyone in the organization and 42% believe top management must participate constantly. Only

29% are constantly looking for ways to promote ESN.


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13. Have employees adopted ESN successfully?

67% of professionals say that their employees have not adopted ESN successfully, while only

33% say their employees have adopted the network correctly.

14. What percentage of your employees uses ESN?

43% of participants say the percentage of participation from their employees is only from 0-25%.

17% say its between 26-40% and 9% is between 41-50%. Only 30% says that 50% or more of

their employees use ESN.


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15. What is the level of participation of your employees? (0 – least, 10 – most)

54% of respondents say that the level of employees is between 0-3 in a scale where 0 is the least

level of participation and 10 is the most. 34% say the level is between 4-6 and only 12% say the

level between 7-10.

16. Your employees use ESN mostly for? (check all that apply)

83% of professionals say their employees use ESN to get information from the company. 38%

say employees use it to post information for the rest of the organization and to post complaints,

ideas and recommendations. Only 29% use it to participate in group projects. Less than 25%


42

percent use it to meet other peers, meet employees from other companies and to find out about

the life of other peers.

17. Many ESNs have been implemented with no success, why do you think this is?

When asked about the lack of success on ESN implementations professionals agree and disagree

to the following statements:

1. Lack of engagement from top management

a. 50% agree that failure is due to a lack of engagement from top management and

27% strongly agree on this fact. 23% neither agree nor disagree.

2. Platform is introduced with no strategy to promote it

a. 39% agree that one of the reasons to failure is that the platform is introduced with

no strategy to promote it and 43% strongly agree. 4% neither agree nor disagree

with the statement and 23% disagree.


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3. Platform softwares are not user friendly

a. 36% agree that one of the reasons to failure is that the platform is not user friendly

and 23% strongly agree. 18% neither agree nor disagree with the statement and

13% disagree.

4. ESN is not given the correct importance within the organization

a. 64% agree that failure is because the ESN is not given the correct importance

within the organization and 18% strongly agree on this fact. 14% neither agree

nor disagree and 5% disagree with this statement.

5. Employees are afraid to share personal information and to participate

a. 39% agree that one of the reasons to failure is that employees are afraid to share

personal information and to participate and 13% strongly agree. 30% neither

agree nor disagree with the statement and 17% disagree.

18. Do you agree that ESNs are a great tool to promote collaboration and engagement?

50% of professionals agree that ESNs are a great tool to promote collaboration and engagement

and 29% strongly agree. 17% neither agree nor disagree and 4% strongly disagree with this

statement.


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3.4.2. Employees Survey

This survey was made in order to identify what employees think about enterprise social media

and how this affects the adoption of the network on organizations. 64 employees from around the

world filled this survey. 91 percent of them are between the ages of 23 – 38 years old. The

answers are as follows:

1. Have you used an Enterprise Social Network (ESN) before?

65% of employees have not used ESN before and 35% have used it.

2. Do you have an ESN in the company you work for?

71% say they don’t have it in the company they work for and 29% say they do.


45

3. If you were presented with an online platform at work would you participate on it? If you

currently use it mark your level of participation.

43% say they would sometimes use an ESN or use it currently, 25% say they will rarely use it

and 24% say they would use it often.

4. What will decide if you use ESN or not? Check all that apply

63% of employees say they would use ESN if they can find relevant information, 54% say they

would use it if they can participate in work projects, 47% say they would use it if their peers are

using it and 44% say they would participate if their managers and using it and if they can post

relevant information, ideas and complaints. 31% say they would use it if top management is


46

involved and 29% if they can meet employees from other countries. Only 14% say they would

use it if they could meet employees in their own countries and 11% say they would participate it

on it to find out about the life of their peers.

5. I use or would use ESN mostly to: (check all that apply)

62% of employees say they would use their ESN to get information from their company, 60%

say to post information to inform the rest of the organization, 58% to participate in group

projects and 46% to post complaints, ideas and recommendations.

6. What best describes your thoughts about ESN? (check all that apply)


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37% of employees say they get valuable information from their ESNs, 25% say they use it to

participate in projects, 24% say they like posting their ideas and getting feedback. 22% say they

don’t have time to use it, 16% say they don’t understand what to use it for, 14% say they barely

remember they have a platform and 11% say they don’t know how it works. 10% say they cant

find any valuable information on the platform.

7. If you don’t use or wouldn’t use ESN regularly, why? (Check all that apply)

38% of employees say they don’t have time to use ESN regularly, 31% say its one more thing to

do and 30% say they have too many emails to manage and worry about ESN. 18% say that they

wouldn’t use it because everybody can see what they write, 16% say they don’t know where to

find their ESN, 11% say it is not easy to figure out and that they have to sign up for it and 7%

say they are worried about what their manager can see. Only 7% say they use it regularly.

8. How would you characterize your experience with ESN?


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61% say they characterize their experience with ESN as neither good nor bad. 14% characterize

it as fair and 15% have a positive experience. On the other hand, 6% characterize it as poor and

5% have a negative experience.

9. How long have you used ESN?

48% of employees say that they have never used ESN, 34% have used it between 2 years and

less than a year and 17% have used it between 3 to more than 5 years.

10. What was/is the level of your participation on the ESN?

49% say they never use ESN, 32% say they use it very little, 16% say they use sometimes and

only 3% say they use it a lot.


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11. If you had any negative or positive experience please describe below

Text Response

It is often a waste of time.

People didn´t see the usefulness of the ESN

Not a lot of my peers were using it so I had no reason to use it either

I haven't used it, but I have a friend whose previous employer had it and they made her

use it. From what she told me about it, it seemed like a very inefficient tool to

communicate with people and overall a bit of a waste of time. She described it as being

like Facebook for work, only worse. It didn't leave an altogether positive impression on

me.

We don't have one

It facilitates work

4. ANALYSIS

4.1. Trick or tweat? The problems when the theory is put to practice

As mentioned before, theoretically ESM is a great tool to break down silos and promote

collaboration. However, research shows that adoption continues to be a problem, which

consequently affects the practice of ESM. Said easier, all the advantages and benefits ESN

offers, in theory, are not harnessed when employees fail to use the network properly.


50

According to the professionals’ survey, 67% say that their employees have not adopted

ESN successfully. Likewise, a total of 69% respondents say 50% or less of their employees do

not participate on the company’s ESN. Only 31% of professionals says that 50% of their

employees or more participates with the network. 54% of respondents say that the level of

employees’ participation is between 0-3 in a scale where 0 is the least level of participation and

10 is the most. Giving this a clear view on the adoption problems. A combined 61% of

professionals have had a fair or poor experience with ESM.

When asked about how their employees use ESN, 83% of professionals say their

employees use ESN to get information from the company; 38% say employees use it to post

information for the rest of the organization and to post complaints, ideas and recommendations;

only 29% use it to participate in group projects and less than 25% use it to meet other peers, meet

employees from other companies and to find out about the life of other peers. The problem here

is that employees are using the tool as just an informative tool as oppose to a collaboration

interactive tool.

On the employees’ survey a lack of interest from employees is what mostly stands out.

Meaning that there is a problem of connection between theory and practice: employees are not

engaged. 61% say they characterize their experience with ESN as neither good nor bad, meaning

that they don’t put any type of importance to the matter.

When asked if they would use an ESN or use it currently 43% say they would sometimes

use it, 25% say they will rarely use it and only 24% say they would use it often. Likewise, 49%

of employees say they never use ESN, 32% say they use it very little, 16% say they use it

sometimes and only 3% say they use it a lot.


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About how ESNs stand in employees’ minds results show that 37% of employees use

ESNs to get valuable information; 25% say they use it to participate in projects; 24% say they

like posting their ideas and getting feedback; 22% say they don’t have time to use it; 16% say

they don’t understand what to use it for; 14% say they barely remember they have a platform;

11% say they don’t know how it works and 10% say they cant find any valuable information on

the platform. The low percentages shown in these results show the lack of correct usage of ESN.

There is a big gap between theory and practice, mainly shown on the lack of interest on

behalf of employees, which shows definite problems of adoption. But what employees are saying

is just a reaction to the incentives they are offered. It is up to the company to create an enterprise

social network that engages employees and encourages them to collaborate and participate within

the network.

4.2. What are companies doing wrong.

Logistically companies are not doing anything wrong: 86% of professionals answered

they use either an open source platform like yammer or an in-house platform created specifically

for the company. 66% of respondents say their employees can access their ESN either though

internet or company’s website, 36% position it in the top right corner of their intranet and 56% of

respondents say that their employees have to opt-in to access. However, although the basic

processes are followed correctly, companies are failing to promote ESNs properly in order to

promote adoption.

The fact that 82% of professionals use their ESNs to inform employees about what is

going on in the organization shows that the problem with adoption begins within the company.

As we learned from experts earlier, one of the main reasons as to why ESNs fail is because


52

companies do not identify the right reasons why they implement the network. Research shows

that professionals are using ESN as just another tool of their internal one-way communication

process: deliver information. More importantly perks of ESN, like asking for feedback,

encouragement on project collaboration and give employees ways to meet each other, all fall

below 40 % in the professionals’ answers. As found on the employees’ survey 62% say they

would use their ESN to get information from their company, 60% say to post information to

inform the rest of the organization, 58% to participate in group projects and 46% to post

complaints, ideas and recommendations.

Although 39% of professionals agree and 43% strongly agree that one of the reasons to

ESN’s failure is that the platform is introduced with no strategy to promote it, less than half of

professionals, 48%, say they create engaging content and they participate in the platform in order

to promote their ESNs. Also, in other engaging activities that professionals could do in order to

promote participation, only 30% say they create discussions and projects on ESNs, just 26% of

them say they create internal campaigns to promote usage and only 29% are constantly looking

for ways to promote ESN. Likewise, 58% of participants believe that employees will adopt ESN

in time. These results show that companies have no strategy to launch and maintain the networks,

which consequently affect adoption.

From the professionals’ survey 77% of respondents agree or strongly agree that failure of

ESNs is due to a lack of engagement from top management. Similarly, 42% believe top

management must participate constantly. However only 22% encourages managers to promote

and use ESN and only 13% asks top management to participate.


53

according to the professionals’ answers, 56% of senior leaders are sometimes engaged in

using ESN, while 32% are rarely or never engaged. Only 12% of senior leaders are engaged most

of the time and 0% are always engaged. Likewise, only 16% say their CEOs use the ESN most

of the time. 24% say their CEO use the network sometimes, 40% say rarely and 20% say they

never use it. As we could identify on our secondary research, the failure to include upper

management is a direct correlation to failure in adopting the process, results of the survey

support this statement. Research shows that 44% of employees say they would participate if their

managers are using the network and 31% say they would use it if top management was involved.

5. CONCLUSION

The concept of ESN is great and the advantages it offers seems as the panacea for cultural

problems in organizations. However, somewhere between theory and real results the panacea

philosophy is lost. Where in the middle? The actual implementation of the ESN is done halfway

through. What was found in the secondary research of this paper and proved in the primary

research has a direct correlation with adoption problems.

With the Humana Case Study we can see that ESNs can be implemented successfully if

the network is considered as an overall strategy that synergizes with the business. However,

professionals are implementing ESNs as another communication tool without giving it a purpose,

without maintaining various tactics to engage employees constantly and without giving the

network the importance it should uphold throughout the whole organization.


54

What are employees not ‘liking’? The method of introduction and encouragement

companies are using, or actually the lack of promotion and importance the companies are giving

when implementing the networks. For the that reason, ESNs are not working.

5.1. What Should Companies Do

So what can be done to encourage employees to participate better with ESNs? Based on

the secondary and primary research of this paper the following pyramid proposes the best

practices to follow, in order of importance, when implementing a social media platform.

5.2. ‘Like’ The Future

Should companies continue to do internal social media? Like anything else in businesses, an

idea without a strategy will never adopted, even less ‘sell’. Failure of ESNs to catch on stems

from the failure of management to integrate. Unless upper management understands the

•  Create a Detailed Strategy 1

•  Involve Upper Management 2

•  Integrate ESN with Business 3

•  Identify Right Reasons 4

•  Identify Culture of Organization 5

•  Train Employees 6


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importance of an ESN and a 360 degree strategy is put into action, companies should refrain

from implementing an ESN.

6. RECOMMENDATIONS

For future research the sampling for survey research should be increased. A survey

should have the participation of at least 400+ employees and at least 100+ professionals.

Likewise, a more detailed screening of employees’ participants should be made in order to

survey only employees that have used ESN before in order to avoid lost of knowledge from

non-ESN users.

In relation to this, survey questions should be expanded to obtain more in depth

information on what this paper collected in the secondary research. This is to contribute a

bigger scope of findings and provide further details failed to mention in this paper.Finally, an

analysis of more than 3 failure and success case studies should be used in order to identify

possible patterns is recommended for further research.


56

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APPENDIX 1

Enterprise Social Media –Survey Questions for Professionals

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey.

This survey is directed at internal communication professionals and attempts to find a broader

understanding of Enterprise Social Media and its success or failure within organizations.

This survey should only take about 10 minutes of your time.

Your answers will be completely anonymous. All responses will remain confidential.

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact me at [email protected].

Enterprise Social Media (ESM) or Enterprise Social Networks (ESN) are Facebook like

platforms that allow workers to (1) communicate messages with specific coworkers or broadcast


63

messages to everyone in the organization; (2) explicitly indicate or implicitly reveal particular

coworkers as communication partners; (3) post, edit, and sort text and files linked to themselves

or others; and (4) view the messages, connections, text, and files communicated, posted, edited

and sorted by anyone else in the organization at any time of their choosing

(Text extracted from Enterprise Social Media: Definition, History, and Prospects for the Study of

Social Technologies in Organizations by Paul Leonardi, Marleen Huysman and Charles

Steinfield)

1. In your organization, ESN is used for: (check all that apply)

a. To get feedback on what employees want

b. Inform employees of what is going on within organization

c. To encourage employees to create projects and work conjunctly

d. To identify trends on workplace

e. To give employees a social platform to habilitate ways for them to meet one

another

2. How would you characterize your experience with enterprise social media?

a. Excellent

b. Very Good

c. Average

d. Did not meet expectations


a. More than five years

b. Three to five years


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c. Under two years

d. Less than a year

4. Your ESN is:

a. A platform created by open source or proprietary software (ie: Yammer,

SocialCast, Tibbr, Jive, Connections, etc)

b. An in-house platform created specifically for the company

c. A public site like Facebook or Twitter


a. Link on company’s webpage

b. Intranet

c. Through a link we sent them

d. They have a button on their desktop

e. Desktop application

f. Other: ___________________


a. Quadrant 1 (top left)

b. Quadrant 2 (top right)

c. Quadrant 3 (bottom left)

d. Quadrant 4 (bottom right)

e. Don’t have it in the intranet

f. We don’t have intranet


a. Yes


65

b. No


a. 1 - least

b. 2

c. 3

d. 4

e. 5

f. 6

g. 7

h. 8

i. 9

j. 10 – most


a. Yes

b. No


a. 1 - least

b. 2

c. 3

d. 4

e. 5

f. 6


66

g. 7

h. 8

i. 9

j. 10 – most

11. What do you do promote the ESN in your company? Check all that apply

a. I send emails

b. I participate on the platform

c. I create discussions and projects

d. I encourage managers to promote and use them

e. I create internal campaigns to promote usage

f. I hope employees will start adopting it

g. I ask top management to participate

h. I create engaging content

12. What best describes your thoughts? (Check all that apply)

a. I am constantly looking for ways to promote ESN

b. I believe employees will adopt ESN in time

c. Top management must participate constantly on ESN

d. ESN is not for everyone in the organization

e. ESN is for employees and we cant bother top management with this

f. ESN is a waste of time and energy


a. Yes


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b. No

14. What percentage of your employees uses ESN?

a. 0 - 25%

b. 25% - 40%

c. 40% - 50%

d. 50% - 60%

e. 60% - 70%

f. 70% - 80%

g. 80% - 90%

h. 90% - 100%

15. What is the level of participation of your employees?

a. 1 - least

b. 2

c. 3

d. 4

e. 5

f. 6

g. 7

h. 8

i. 9

j. 10 – most

16. Your employees use ESN mostly for? (check all that apply)

a. Meet other peers


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b. Participate in group projects

c. Get information from company

d. Meet employees from other countries

e. To find out about the life of their peers

f. Post information to inform rest of the organization

g. Post complaints, ideas, and recommendations

17. Many ESNs have been implemented with no success, why do you think this is?

a. Lack of engagement from top management

b. Platform is introduced with no strategy to promote it

c. Platform softwares are not user-friendly

d. ESN is not given the correct importance within the organization

e. Employees are afraid to share personal information and to participate


a. Completely Disagree

b. Somewhat Disagree

c. Neutral

d. Somewhat Agree

e. Completely Agree

Survey Link: https://nyu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_daLrbUmNPlXyDml


69

APPENDIX 2

Qualtrics Report Professionals’ Survey

Initial Report Last Modified: 03/16/2015

1. Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. This survey was developed within the framework of the capstone project for the Masters of Science in Public Relations and Corporate Communications at New York University. This survey is directed at internal communication professionals and attempts to find a broader understanding of Enterprise Social Media and its success or failure within organizations. This survey should only take about 10 minutes of your time. Your answers will be completely anonymous. All responses will remain confidential. The data collected will only


70

be used for capstone purposes. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact me at [email protected].

# Answer

Response % 1 I Accept

38 100% Total 38 100%

Statistic Value Min Value 1 Max Value 1 Mean 1.00 Variance 0.00 Standard Deviation 0.00 Total Responses 38


71

2. In your organization, Enterprise Social Networks (ESN) are used for: (check all that apply)

# Answer

Response %

1

To get feedback on what employees want

9 32%

2

Inform employees of what is going on within organization

23 82%

3

To encourage employees to create projects and work conjunctly

10 36%

4 To identify trends on workplace

4 14%

5

To give employees a social platform to habilitate ways for them to meet one another

11 39%

6 Other (specify)

2 7%


72

# Answer

Response %

1

To get feedback on what employees want

9 32%

2

Inform employees of what is going on within organization

23 82%

3

To encourage employees to create projects and work conjunctly

10 36%

4 To identify trends on workplace

4 14%

5

To give employees a social platform to habilitate ways for them to meet one another

11 39%

6 Other (specify)

2 7%


73

Other (specify) Inform customers of what is doig organization Share info/ask questions

Statistic Value Min Value 1 Max Value 6 Total Responses 28


# Answer

Response % 1 Poor

8 29% 2 Fair

9 32% 3 Good

10 36% 4 Very Good

1 4% 5 Excellent

0 0% Total 28 100%


74



# Answer

Response %

1 More than five years

4 14%

2 Three to five years

10 36%

3 Two to one year

9 32%

4 Less than a year

5 18%

Total 28 100%


75


5. Your ESN is:


76

# Answer

Response %

1

A platform created by open source or proprietary software (ie: Yammer, SocialCast, Tibbr, Jive, Connections, etc)

12 43%

2

An in-house platform created specifically for the company

12 43%

3 A public site like Facebook or Twitter

4 14%

Total 28 100%



77


# Answer

Response %

1 Link on company’s webpage

6 22%

2 Intranet

12 44%

3 Through a link we sent them

1 4%

4 They have a button on their desktop

2 7%

5 Desktop application

4 15%

6 Other (specify)

2 7%

Total 27 100%

Other (specify) Default homepage in the browser (IE) Cellphone


78



# Answer

Response %

1 Quadrant 1 (top left)

2 8%

2 Quadrant 2 (top right)

9 36%

3 Quadrant 3 (bottom left)

4 16%

4 Quadrant 4 (bottom right)

1 4%

5 Don’t have it in the intranet

3 12%

6 We don’t have intranet

5 20%

7 Other (specify)

1 4%

Total 25 100%


79

Other (specify) accessible on intranet, but invited via email



# Answer

Response % 1 Yes

14 56% 2 No

11 44% Total 25 100%



80


# Answer

Response % 1 Never

1 4% 2 Rarely

7 28% 3 Sometimes

14 56%

4 Most of the Time

3 12%

5 Always

0 0% Total 25 100%



81


# Answer

Response % 1 Yes

13 52% 2 No

12 48% Total 25 100%



82


# Answer

Response % 1 Never

5 20% 2 Rarely

10 40% 3 Sometimes

6 24%

4 Most of the Time

4 16%

5 Always

0 0% Total 25 100%



83

12. What do you do promote the ESN in your company? Check all that apply

# Answer

Response % 1 I send emails

8 35%

2 I participate on the platform

11 48%

3 I create discussions and projects

7 30%

4

I encourage managers to promote and use them

5 22%

5

I create internal campaigns to promote usage

6 26%

6

I hope employees will start adopting it

7 30%

7 I ask top management to participate

3 13%

8 I create engaging content

11 48%


84


13. What best describes your thoughts? Check all that apply


85

# Answer

Response %

1

I am constantly looking for ways to promote ESN

7 29%

2

I believe employees will adopt ESN in time

14 58%

3

Top management must participate constantly on ESN

10 42%

4 ESN is not for everyone in the organization

11 46%

5

ESN is for employees and we cant bother top management with this

2 8%

6 ESN is a waste of time and energy

1 4%



86


# Answer

Response % 1 Yes

8 33% 2 No

16 67% Total 24 100%



87

15. What percentage of your employees use ESN?

# Answer

Response % 1 0% - 25%

10 43% 2 26% - 40%

4 17% 3 41% - 50%

2 9% 4 51% - 60%

3 13% 5 61% - 70%

2 9% 6 71% - 80%

0 0% 7 81% - 90%

1 4% 8 91% - 100%

1 4% Total 23 100%



88

16. What is the level of participation of your employees?

# Answer

Response % 0 0

1 4% 1 1

1 4% 2 2

5 21% 3 3

6 25% 4 4

3 13% 5 5

4 17% 6 6

1 4% 7 7

1 4% 8 8

1 4% 9 9

0 0% 10 10

1 4% Total 24 100%



89

17. Your employees use ESN mostly for? check all that apply

# Answer

Response % 1 Meet other peers

6 25%

2 Participate in group projects

7 29%

3 Get information from the company

20 83%

4 Meet employees from other countries

3 13%

5 To find out about the life of their peers

4 17%

6

Post information to inform the rest of the organization

9 38%

7 Post complaints, ideas, and recommendations

9 38%



90

18. Many ESNs have been implemented with no success. Why do you think this is?


91

# Question Strongly Disagree Disagree

Neither Agree

nor Disagree

Agree Strongly Agree

Total Responses Mean

1

Lack of engagement from top management

0 0 5 11 6 22 4.05

2

Platform is introduced with no strategy to promote it

0 3 1 9 10 23 4.13

3

Platform softwares are not user-friendly

0 5 4 8 5 22 3.59

4

ESN is not given the correct importance within the organization

0 1 3 14 4 22 3.95

5

Employees are afraid to share personal information and to participate

0 4 7 9 3 23 3.48


92

Statistic

Lack of engagement

from top management

Platform is introduced

with no strategy to promote it

Platform softwares are

not user-friendly

ESN is not given the correct

importance within the

organization

Employees are afraid to

share personal

information and to

participate Min Value 3 2 2 2 2 Max Value 5 5 5 5 5 Mean 4.05 4.13 3.59 3.95 3.48 Variance 0.52 1.03 1.21 0.52 0.90 Standard Deviation 0.72 1.01 1.10 0.72 0.95

Total Responses 22 23 22 22 23



93

# Answer

Response %

1 Strongly Disagree

1 4%

2 Disagree

0 0%

3 Neither Agree nor Disagree

4 17%

4 Agree

12 50%

5 Strongly Agree

7 29%

Total 24 100%


20. Please identify you age range


94

# Answer

Response % 1 18 - 22

0 0% 2 23 - 38

20 91% 3 39 - 50

1 5% 4 51 - 69

1 5% 5 70+

0 0% Total 22 100%


21. Identify the country where you work Text Response ECU Ecuador Ecuador USA ecuador Russia UK Ecuador Ecuador United States ecuador Singapore Ukraine Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador ecuador Venezuela USA United States


95

Statistic Value Total Responses 21

APPENDIX 3

Enterprise Social Media – Survey Questions for employees

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey.

This survey attempts to find a broader understanding on the effect of Enterprise Social Media on

employees.

This survey should only take about 10 minutes of your time.

Your answers will be completely anonymous. All responses will remain confidential.

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact me at [email protected].

Enterprise Social Media (ESM) or Enterprise Social Networks (ESN) are Facebook like

platforms where employees can (1) have a personal profile that enables them to meet and

communicate with the rest of employees in your organization; (2) communicate with other peers

privately or publicly within the platform; (3) post, edit, and sort text and files linked to

themselves or others; and (4) view the messages, connections, text, and files communicated,

posted, edited and sorted by anyone else in the organization at any time of their choosing

(Information extracted from Enterprise Social Media: Definition, History, and Prospects for the

Study of Social Technologies in Organizations by Paul Leonardi, Marleen Huysman and

Charles Steinfield)


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Some examples of ESN platforms are: Yammer, SocialCast, Tibbr, Jive, Convo, Kaltura, Chatter,

Zyncro, SocialText, Connections.


a. Yes

b. No


a. Yes

b. No

3. If you were presented with an online platform at work would you participate on it? If you

currently use it mark your level of participation.

a. Not at all

b. A little

c. Moderately

d. Quite a lot

e. Extremely


a. Are my managers using it

b. Are my peers using it

c. Is top management involved

d. I can find relevant information

e. I can meet people in my country

f. I can meet employees from other countries


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g. I can participate on work projects

h. I can find out about the life of my peers

i. I can post relevant information, ideas and complaints

5. I use or would use ESN mostly to: (check all that apply)

a. Meet other peers

b. Participate in group projects

c. Get information from company

d. Meet employees from other countries

e. To find out about the life of my peers

f. Post information to inform rest of the organization

g. Post complaints, ideas, and recommendations

6. What best describes your thoughts about ESN? (check all that apply)

a. I don’t have time to use it

b. I get valuable information from it

c. There is no information relevant to me in that platform

d. I like posting my ideas and get feedback

e. I don’t know how the platform works

f. I don’t understand what to use it for

g. I barely remember we have that platform

h. I have used it to meet employees in other countries for when I travel

i. I have used to meet peers in my country

j. I use it to participate in projects

7. If you don’t use or wouldn’t use ESN regularly, why? (Check all that apply)


98

a. I don’t have time.

b. It’s one more thing to manage.

c. It’s not private and everyone sees what I write.

d. I’m worried my manager my see what I write.

e. It’s not easy to figure out.

f. I don’t know where to find it.

g. I have too many emails to manage to worry about this.

h. I have to sign up for it.

i. Other (specify) _______________

j. I use it regularly


a. Excellent

b. Very Good

c. Good

d. Average

e. Did not meet expectations


a. More than five years

b. Three to five years

c. Two to one year

d. Less than a year

e. Never used it



99

a. 1 - least

b. 2

c. 3

d. 4

e. 5

f. 6

g. 7

h. 8

i. 9

j. 10 – most

11. If you had any negative or positive experience please describe below

_________________________________________________________________

Survey Link: https://nyu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5nfYmfaqvd1ajJP


100

APPENDIX 4

Qualtrics Report Employees’ Survey

Initial Report Last Modified: 03/16/2015

1. Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. This survey was developed within the framework of the capstone project for the Masters of Science in Public Relations and Corporate Communications at New York University. This survey attempts to find a broader understanding on the effect of Enterprise Social Media on employees. This survey should only take about 10 minutes of your time. Your answers will be completely anonymous. All responses will remain confidential. The data collected will only be used for capstone purposes. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact me at [email protected].

# Answer

Response % 1 I accept

84 100% Total 84 100%



101


# Answer

Response % 1 Yes

28 35% 2 No

51 65% Total 79 100%



102


# Answer

Response % 1 Yes

22 29% 2 No

54 71% Total 76 100%



103

4. If you were presented with an on-line platform at work would you participate on it? If you currently use it mark your level of participation.

# Answer

Response % 1 Never

4 6% 2 Rarely

18 25% 3 Sometimes

31 43% 4 Often

17 24%

5 All of the Time

2 3%

Total 72 100%



104



105

# Answer

Response %

1 Are my managers using it

31 44%

2 Are my peers using it

33 47%

3 Is top management involved

22 31%

4 I can find relevant information

44 63%

5 I can meet people in my country

10 14%

6

I can meet employees from other countries

20 29%

7 I can participate on work projects

38 54%

8 I can find out about the life of my peers

8 11%

9

I can post relevant information, ideas and complaints

31 44%



106

6. I use or would use ESN mostly to: Check all that apply

# Answer

Response % 1 Meet other peers

14 22%

2 Participate in group projects

38 58%

3 Get information from my company

40 62%

4 Meet employees from other countries

25 38%

5 To find out about the life of my peers

9 14%

6

Post information to inform the rest of the organization

39 60%

7 Post complaints, ideas, and recommendations

30 46%



107

7. What best describes your thoughts about ESN? Check all that apply


108

# Answer

Response %

1 I don’t have time to use it

14 22%

2 I get valuable information from it

23 37%

3

There is no information relevant to me in that platform

6 10%

4 I like posting my ideas and get feedback

15 24%

5

I don’t know how the platform works

7 11%

6

I don’t understand what to use it for

10 16%

7

I barely remember we have that platform

9 14%

8

I have used it to meet employees in other countries for when I travel

8 13%

9 I have used to meet peers in my country

6 10%

10 I use it to participate in projects

16 25%



109

8. If you don’t use or would not use ESN regularly, why? Check all that apply


110

# Answer

Response %

1 I don’t have time.

23 38%

2 It’s one more thing to manage.

19 31%

3

It’s not private and everyone sees what I write.

11 18%

4

I’m worried my manager might see what I write.

4 7%

5 It’s not easy to figure out.

7 11%

6 I don’t know where to find it.

10 16%

7

I have too many emails to manage to worry about this.

18 30%

8 I have to sign up for it.

7 11%

9 I use it regularly

4 7%

10 Other (Specify)

6 10%

Other (Specify) I don't have it at work. face to face is better and i can get away with more, like bullying subordinates I would use it I haven't´heard about it I have nit havd the opportinity



111


# Answer

Response % 1 Very Bad

1 2% 2 Bad

2 3% 3 Poor

4 6%

4 Neither Good nor Bad

39 61%

5 Fair

9 14% 6 Good

8 13% 7 Very Good

1 2% Total 64 100%



112


# Answer

Response %

1 More than five years

4 6%

2 Three to five years

7 11%

3 Two to one year

11 17%

4 Less than a year

11 17%

5 Never used it

30 48% Total 63 100%



113


# Answer

Response % 1 None

31 49% 2 Little

20 32% 3 Some

10 16% 4 A Lot

2 3% Total 63 100%



114

12. If you had any negative or positive experience please describe below Text Response Its is often a waist of time. People didn´t see the usefulness of the ESN Not a lot of my peers were using it so I had no reason to use it either I haven't used it, but I have a friend whose previous employer had it and they made her use it. From what she told me about it, it seemed like a very inefficient tool to communicate with people and overall a bit of a waste of time. She described it as being like Facebook for work, only worse. It didn't leave an altogether positive impression on me. N/a NO None No No We don't have one It agilitates work


13. Please identify your age range


115

# Answer

Response % 1 18 - 22

0 0% 2 23 - 38

58 91% 3 39 - 50

6 9% 4 51- 69

0 0% 5 70+

0 0% Total 64 100%



116

14. Identify the country where you work Text Response US USA United States Chile Colombia USA US USA USA ECU Ecuador Dominican Republic Us USA USA USA United States USA Turkey USA turkey usa USA Chile usa Mexico Ecuador usa United states Usa Ecuador ECUADOR Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador ecuador Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador


117

ECUADOR AND US Ecuador Ecuador Ecuador equator Usa Spain Ecuador USA Ecuador ecuador United States Ecuador


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