Archive of News
HR and social media: What’s happening in 2014?
In my article Predictions for HR in 2014, I spoke about how social media is going to be a more dominant force in the HR sphere this year. The question is: How are HR professionals using social media on a day-to-day basis?
According to the recent HR Trends survey, HR professionals are using social media for a surprising number of tasks.
The survey – of which the respondents were HR practitioners - found that:
- Twenty five percent use social media for team building,
- Twenty six percent use it for induction purposes,
- Nearly 35% use social media for training,
- Just over 40% use it for employee communications, and
- A massive 69% use it in their recruitment strategy.
This is an incredible finding! It clearly shows how social media has already started to infiltrate all of HR's functions and HR practitioners are starting to feel the pressure to hop on the social media bandwagon. According to The Undercover Recruiter, a survey from Silk Road found that HR leaders are just now starting to feel the heat to assess, justify and implement social technology initiatives.
This survey found that:
- Seventy five percent of respondents felt that their company was behind with internal and external use of social technology.
But even more shocking was the revelation that only about half of the companies still block employees' use of social media with hardly any reasons to justify this. This means that HR professionals can't use social media as a more engaging and effective way of executing their functions.
How can we move forward if employers are blind to the benefits that social media can reap for the HR department and workforce as a whole?
Frew Murdoch is the assistant editor of HR Pulse. She is currently completing the last semester of her BA degree in Communications and English. "I stumbled across your review of our Ethics Guide published 28 June 2012 and wish to thank you for the positive and complimentary comments made – this was a lovely surprise and most rewarding. I will certainly pass this on to all co-authors of the Guide."
Christine Botha, co-author of 'Ethics in HR Management: A guide for HR professionals and line managers', had this to say:
