It's hard for anyone working in HR to avoid being exposed to online social networking. With more than 120 million people around the globe using the most popular tool, Facebook, to conduct their social lives, discuss interests, organise events and make new contacts, HR managers need to quickly come to terms with the phenomenon.
Wasting time or wasting opportunities?
Although many companies ban personal use of the internet, not all organisations see the situation in such black and white terms.
Technology company Serena has recently begun embracing Facebook. Kyle Artega, Vice President of Corporate Communications, says banning personal internet surfing had proved to be counter-productive. With 35% of our staff working from home, we needed to find a way to build a corporate culture and strengthen the Serena brand, he says. After some brain storming, Jeremy Burton (CEO) decided that we could build our corporate identity using Facebook. The opportunity to promote the company to whole networks of friends, families and colleagues was too good to pass up.
Although HR was initially very resistant, Arteaga says the department is now excited about the possibilities that Facebook offers. Recently they used Facebook to show the results of the company wide corporate responsibility project. Each region posted photos of their project, such as cleaning beaches. With more than 600 photos, employees were able to see what their colleagues accomplished on the same day around the world.
In addition to building a corporate culture Serena's HR has also found Facebook helpful for recruiting. By sending a message to friends of the company ' it can also reach friends of those friends and more. Over the last year, the number of résumés has substantially increased. There has also been an increase in participation at recruitment events. During a recent global user conference, 500 invitations were sent out but 1000 people attended. Our initial invitations were passed on to other people through their networks resulting in 500 extra people attending the event.
According to Arteaga, the first step was to train employees on how to create profiles and use websites once reserved for the younger generation. We brought in teenagers who volunteered to teach staff how to use Facebook. The kids got a kick out of helping people, like our corporate counsel, create personal profiles and learn how to get around the website.
The company started with only 1% of its 800 staff using Facebook. But within one month that figure was closer to 90%. The average age of our employees is 45. We were able to get such a high percentage of employees using the programme by being diligent. We trained and educated and had lots of explanations of why it was important.
Serena also made the process fun. We held 'Facebook Fridays' so that people would take fun pictures of each other to post on the website. We wanted to make sure that everyone had at least one photo of themselves on their profile page, Arteaga said.
Is my to-do list confidential?
Although Serena's legal department was not very happy about the idea of using such a public forum for business matters, Serena's CEO did not back down. Burton said we were doing it and told legal to reduce the 25 page communication policy to 3 pages. Serena also had to overhaul its confidentiality policies.
First, we decided what information was actually private. says Arteaga. After a detailed look, we determined that only 5% of the information passing between employees was proprietary or confidential. Out of the 800 employees, that meant only 20 people actually had access to this information.
So instead of training all staff on secrecy protocols, Serena looked only at those 20 staff members that needed to know. This approach is drastically different from the way most companies approach information and communications, Arteaga says. Sometimes the type of information we are keeping private is not necessary. We wanted to make it possible for all employees to use Facebook without having to worry about everything that they sent onto the Internet.
One of the biggest advantages for Serena's employees is the sense of community that has developed over the last year. We are no longer just a bunch of individuals, says Arteaga. The Facebook profiles help to show that Serena is not just a boring company, it makes everything more personal. With each profile, employees learn more about their colleagues and that definitely adds to the sense of teamwork.