Welcome to the Social Media in HR conference blog! Over the coming weeks we’ll be updating this with more information and further updates from our speakers.
Whilst I was researching the themes for the conference I spoke to a number of practitioners who are really beginning to harness the power of social media to execute their HR strategy. It was great to talk to so many early adopters to find out how they are leveraging web 2.0 and social tools to deliver value to their organisations and we’ve invited many of them to share their experience and progress at the conference. For further details of the conference programme, please visit the conference website.
So it came as a bit of surprise to me when – just the day after finalising the agenda for the programme – I read an article drawing attention to the fact that some firms are increasingly clamping down on the use of social media at work believing that the security risks outweigh the positive impacts.
There appears to be a huge polarisation of opinion when it comes to the best way to approach the use of social media in the workplace. Conflict also exists as to whether social media use is permitted: 48% of employers claim that they do encourage or allow social media usage whilst only 25% of employees agree that this is the case.
I am really looking forward to getting some feedback from delegates at the conference as to where they sit on this issue, and whether they think the security risks really outweigh the positives. The idea of taking a formalised approach to social media usage is sure to cause some controversy and debate, and I will be particularly interested to see whether employees agree with the stance their current employers are taking….roll on 7th December and let the discussions begin!!
It's a really interesting point. It seems that a lot of companies would like to think that they're trusting of their employees and happy to give them free rein on communication, but they're still scared of what might happen if things go wrong.
Also it seems that "social media" is thought of this big and scary all encompassing thing, with companies picturing their employees on Facebook etc all day long, rather than considering what the "social" and informal benefits might be within their workforce.
There are many risks to employers from employees that share information on particular topics using social media such as facebook twitter and blogs. However, risks to confidential information and reputation can be minimised with the use of quite simple staff guidelines.
I simple policy and a little training works
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