white paper soc media and employee engagement

1. Social Media and Employee Engagement
How social can lead to a more vibrant workplace
White Paper 2011

2. Acknowledgments
Impact People Practices is an HR & Business consulting firm that will turn everything you think about people on its head. Be prepared for innovation, new tools and a fresh approach to HR, training, branding, leadership and employee engagement.
Christine McLeod CHRP speaks, trains and consults in the area of Leadership & Employee Engagement
Impact People. Impact Results. Its HR of the Future.
This white paper was completed with assistance from
Lynette Sawyer, Graphic Design graphical. [email protected]
Nora Stoecker, Researcher [email protected]
For additional audio content on each slide click on speaker icon bottom right of each slide

3. Increasing Employee Engagement with Social Media
Contents
Why care about employee engagement?
Key factors in employee engagement
How can social media enhance employee engagement?
Social media tools
How are social media tools being used?
Challenges to adopting social media tools
Corporate culture is key
Explore social media tools to increase employee engagement
Additional reading
You are a forward thinking leader and youve become comfortable with social media tools in your personal and professional life. Your company may be using social media tools for employee recruitment efforts and to engage customers via external marketing campaigns.
The question is: Are you using social media tools internally to increase employeeengagement? To drive interaction, connection, collaboration, innovation and conversation to new heights? Its being done very successfully by some companies, and for good reason. Employees respond well to social media tools when they complement existing ways of communicating. The positive attitude and energy from an engaged workforce results in increased retention, improvements to the business itself, and a positive external image.
Christine McLeod and the team at Impact People Practices have researched and compiled this white paper for you summarizing why and how social media tools can be used to increase employee engagement. It is meant to stimulate thought and discussion at all levels in your organization and give you some ideas to try out.
@impactresults| http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/impactpeople | http://impactpeoplepractices.com/blog/

4. Why care about employee engagement?
Success results when engaged employees deliver exceptional customer service to loyal customers who consistently choose you.
Christine McLeod, CHRP, Impact People Practices
Aon Hewitt Associates research across more than 7,000 organizations indicates that each disengaged employee costs an organization an average of $10,000 in profit annually.
Aon Hewitt website, 2010

5. Key factors in employee engagement
Salary and job security are, of course, important to employees, but more is needed to create true engagement. Factors include feeling valued; feeling respected; feeling involved; feeling heard; feeling well-led.
People want to be engaged. They want their work to have meaning and their contributions to be valued and recognized. Engaged employees enjoy what theyre doing; they find it fulfilling; the positive attitude and energy from an engaged workforce pays dividends in employee retention and attraction of top talent.

6. How can social media enhance employee engagement?
How we learn, connect and collaborate outside of the workplace has been transformed by social media. To experience that and then be confined to traditional communication and ways of interacting via email and meetings at work seems constricting and almost counterintuitive.
Christine McLeod, CHRP

7. Companies that provide access to social networking sites may have an edge when it comes to employee engagement.
CA Magazine, Sep. 2010*
*With permission from CAmagazine, published by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Toronto
You cant have a vibrant social network where youre trying to get informal conversations
going, knowledge transferred and connections made and police the thing to death
Henneman, Workforce Management,
Mar. 2010

8. Social media tools
A NATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS Inc. (NPR) (Canada) survey reported that 88% of its respondents cited social media as the number one trend impacting internal communications in their companies. The survey also found that face-to-face dialogue is viewed as the most effective way to communicate.
As youll see from some of the examples below, a number of companies use social media tools as a way to enhance or add value to the face-to-face experience, not replace it as some people fear.

9. How are social media tools being used?
Following are some examples from both private industry and public corporations that have incorporated social media into their employee engagement efforts. The tools are home-grown and otherwise.

10. Blogs
a type of website consisting of short entries providing commentary or news
American Airlines - Internal blogging on the employee portal has generated company-wide participation. We spend a lot of time on our
blogs talking about the enhancements that various employees have come up with and how theyre implemented, as well as gathering whatever other ideas employees have about how we can either improve on those efforts or
get new ideas to improve other aspects of the customer experience.
Source: At American Airlines, the People are the Process, Engagement Strategies magazine, Jun/Jul 2010

11. Internal social networking site
a website that supports a virtual community of people.
Best Buy Introduced Blue Shirt Nation (BSN), the first social network inside Best Buy, in 2006. That evolved to a Twitter-like application called BSN Mix. Best Buy continues to explore methods for expanding employee
engagement.
Source: various You Tube videos on the topic Best Buy and Social Media

12. Online collaboration
software applications designed to encourage online discussion, interaction and collaboration.
British Telecon - In 2009 British Telecon rolled out their DatatoSharesocial learning platform where any employee can upload videos and
podcasts to support their colleagues in doing a better job. The platform was developed in response to an employee survey indicating that 78% of responding employees preferred to learn from colleagues. The survey was
part of an effort to develop solutions to the challenge of reducing time-tocompetence
for employees and improving customer service.
Source: Jennings, April 2010.

13. Online collaboration
web site that creates a single point of access to information from multiple sources.
BNL - In 2008 BNL, a leading Italian bank, launched a large-scale engagement initiative that included its first broad survey of employees. In addition to various education and training activities, the bank has also
created an online portal through which employees can access coaching tools and documents, and participate in discussion groups.
Source: Caye et al., Jul. 2010

14. As these examples have demonstrated, corporations and other organizations are using a wide range of social media tools to increase
employee engagement. They are using the strength of these tools to enable manager-to-employee and employee-to-employee connections, to foster increased internal collaboration and information sharing, and to improve communications.
So what can we conclude?
If employees want to be engaged, and if engaged employees contribute significantly to the success of a company, and if each disengaged employee costs a company an average $10,000 in profit annually why are more companies and their human resources staffs not taking full advantage of the power of social media to increase employee engagement?

15. Overcoming Challenges to adopting social media tools
There are many challenges, among them the need to establish a business case or return on investment metrics, concerns about the confidentiality and the release of sensitive information, lack of IT support, and getting employee buy-in. (see Bridge Consulting Report, 2009).
Having a good social media policy is key
A well-considered social media policy that incorporates encouragement for
information sharing with reminders of appropriate use, and trusts employees
to engage responsibly, will go a long way to alleviating some of these concerns while also encouraging employees to participate.

16. Corporate culture is key
If your corporate culture inadvertently works against creativity, innovation, and collaboration, and doesnt recognize the value of feedback and the importance of connection to team and fellow colleagues then social tools
alone are not going to change that.
However, just as most employees want to be engaged in their work, we believe that most leaders also want the benefits that creativity, innovation, and collaboration can bring to their work environments.

17. Explore social media tools to increaseemployee engagement
Its worth saying again Success results when engaged employees deliver exceptional customer service to loyal customers who consistently choose you.
Weve shared with you some of what weve learned about why and how social media tools can be used to increase employee engagement.
We encourage you to explore these tools and introduce one or more to your company.
There is brilliance within each of your employees. In person and with social media tools, if you can tap into that brilliance, you enable the rethinking and reshaping of how we connect with and value PEOPLE in our organizations.

18. You can download the full white paper for FREE on our website at
www.impactpeoplepractices.com

20. Additional Reading
Additional Reading
10 Ways to Maximize Employee Engagement. HRFocus, Aug. 2009, p. 5(1).
Employee Engagement and Social Media at Best Buy, Canadian HR Reporter, YouTube video, Nov. 5, 2009.
Employee Engagement: Understand and Improve Productivity Drivers, from Aon Hewitt Associates.com web page on HR Consulting Employee Engagement, Nov. 30, 2010.
Engaged by Social Media. CA Magazine, Sep. 2010, p. 9(1).
One-Third of Companies are Troubled by Low Employee Engagement. The Boston Consulting Group press release, Jul. 13, 2010. [new reference]
Social Media Tips. Eastman Kodak Company, 2009.
Top Performers Reap Cost Engagement Benefits via Social Networking Tools. Marketwire, Jul. 8, 2009.
Beehler, Brian. Transforming our Intranet. Conference Board of Canada, Jul. 2010.
Boese, Steve. Marketing to Your Employees. HR Technology blog, Jul. 7, 2008.
Boese, Steve. Connecting. HR Technology blog, Jul. 2, 2008.
Brandel, Mary. The New Employee Connection: Social Networking Behind the Firewall. Aug. 11, 2008.
Bridge Consulting. How Companies are Using Social Media Tools to Build Connections, 2009.
Burns, Susan. Crossing the Chasm of Workforce Irony. Future of Talent Institute website.
Caye, Jean-Michel, Rainer Strack, Paul Orlander et. al. Creating a New Deal for Middle Managers: Empowering a neglected but Critical Group. Boston Consulting Group report, Jul. 2010.
Ferdinandi, Chris. The 3 Principles of Employer Branding, 2010.
Fleet, Dave. 57 Social Media Policy Examples and Resources. Dave Fleets website, Jul. 2010.
Henneman, Todd. Companies Making Friends with Social Media. Workforce Management, Apr. 2010.
Henneman, Todd. Tool: Six Tips for Establishing Successful Corporate Social Networks. Workforce Management, Mar. 2010.
Hewlett, Sylvia Ann. How EMC Maintained Morale While Cutting Costs. Bloomberg.com, Sep. 23, 2009.
Ingram, Matthew. Jive Software Wants to Be Facebook for the Enterprise. GIGAOM, Jun. 13, 2010.
Jennings, Charles. Learning How to Switch On: Charles Jennings examines the role of social media in engaging employees. Employee Engagement The Daily Telegraph Supplement, Apr. 2010, p. 6(1).
Keenan Jr., William. At American Airlines, the People are the Process. Engagement Strategies Magazine, Jun./Jul. 2010.
Keenan Jr., William. Communicate, Collaborate, Succeed: How EMC Gives Employees a Voice. Engagement Strategies Magazine, Jun./Jul. 2010.
MacLeod, David and Nita Clarke. Engaging for Success: Enhancing performance through employee engagement, a report to government. 2009.
McKenzie, Terry. New Challenges for Engagement: Imagine a workforce that is more isolated, less loyal and more independent. How will communicators help their companies win the hearts and minds of those future employees? Communication World, May-Jun. 2010, p. 24(4).
McLeod, Christine. 10 Ways for Companies to be Cool with Social Tools. Impact people practices blog, Oct. 18, 2010.
Naslund, Amber. Social Media from the Inside Out: Building Internal Networks for Employees Can Improve Processes, Generate New Ideas, and Create a Greater Sense of Community. Communication World, Sep.-Oct. 2010.
NATIONAL Public Relations, Inc. Start the Dialogue: Employee Engagement in Tough Times, executive summary, Jun. 2009.
Nicholson, Natasha. Original thinking: Xeroxs Kevin Warren shares how communication has kept the company on track. Communication World, Sep.-Oct. 2010, p. 20(6).
Pankiewicz, Mike and APA Practice Organization Staff. IntegratingSocial Media IntoYour Organization. Good Company, Sep. 8, 2010.
Wheeler, Kevin. From Social Networks to Communities. Over the Seas blog, Jun. 16, 2010.
World Class Benchmarking. Employee Engagement in Difficult Times. White Paper #14.