On February 16, we held a Mini Forum conference call for RBL Institute members.  The topic we covered represents a challenge being experienced by many businesses: “What are the implications of social media for our companies and Human Resources?”

In recent years, technology has changed the way in which HR people think and do their administrative and strategic work.  At a basic level, HR professionals need to use technology to more efficiently deliver HR administrative systems such as benefits, payroll processing, healthcare costs, and other administrative services. In addition, HR professionals need to use technology to help people stay connected with each other.  This means that technology plays an increasingly important role in improving communications and connecting inside employees to outside customers.  An emerging technology trend is using technology as a relationship-building tool through social media.  Leveraging social media enables the business to position itself for future growth.  HR professionals who understand technology will create improved organizational identity outside the company and improve social relationships inside the company.  As “technology exponents” HR professionals have to access, advocate, analyze, and align technology for information, efficiency, and relationships.

Our call focused specifically on social media.  Social media includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue.  Popular examples of this include online communities, social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), blogs and micro blogs (e.g., Twitter), virtual social sites (e.g. Second Life), webcasts, wikis, etc.  Social media has substantially changed the way organizations, teams, and individuals communicate (meet one another, collaborate, share ideas, dialogue together).  Can you imagine a world today without having it present?  The key is how to blend these technologies with social interaction to generate value for the enterprise.
During the discussion, we addressed this rapidly evolving dimension of business through three questions:

1. How is your company using social media today within the context of human resources (such as in recruiting, training, employee engagement, etc.)?
2. What are the challenges you are facing (such as employee privacy, building technology capability) implementing the use of social media in HR?
3. How do you see the business use of social media evolving over the next five years? How is your company (particularly in HR) planning to further tap into it’s potential?

PARTICIPANTS: Each RBL Institute member company is allowed to register ONE person to participate in this call.  Ideal participants include: senior HR leaders, Centers of Expertise leaders (such as Talent Management or Learning & Development), and Information Technology executives.  The participant should come prepared to share their point of view on the questions.

WHITE PAPER

To view the WHITE PAPER that was produced for this event, please click on the link below.  Note: To access/view these documents, Institute members must be logged on to the RBL website.

*Institute Members only. Contact Ginger Bitter for more information.