Social Media: Impact on The Human
Resources Function
By,
Nidhi Panjwani
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Table of Contents
Social Media- An Introduction
Trends & Statistics
Organisations leveraging social media
Challenges
Social Media- A student perspective?
Questions
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Oh so its Facebook & Twitter right??
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Why Do People Use Social Media?
Networking
Searching for information
Keeping in touch
Making new friends
Sharing information
Rediscovering old friends & colleagues
Displaying creativity
Sharing thoughts, photographs & videos
Form support groups
Altruistic Interests
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Creative Applicants: Building A Personal Brand
Her advertisement got noticed on Twitter, got featured in the Wall Street Journal.
She landed several interview calls in less than a week. 5
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Top Social Media Platforms
• Used for making new friends, keeping in touch, networking.
• 500 Million + Members Worldwide.
• 22 Million Members in India.
• 600,000 New users join Facebook every day.
• 1.5 million pieces of content (photos, posts, blogs, web links)
are shared on FB daily.
• 12% of Facebook users are teens, 45% are 26 years old or older.
• A real time information network where users share what is
“happening/trending” just now.
• 160 Million Members Worldwide
• 5 Million Members in India
• 80 % of Twitter users communicate via mobiles which translates to
anytime, anywhere communication.
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Top Social Media Platforms
• Networking site for professionals.
• 100 Million + Members Worldwide
• 9 Million Members in India
• New members join LinkedIn at the rate of 1 user per second!
• 28% of LinkedIn’s are senior executives earning over $104K.
• A Video sharing platform where users can create, view &
share videos.
• The world’s 2nd largest search engine.
• Increasingly being used by both employers & job
seekers to promote themselves.
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Top Social Media Platforms
• 3,246,027 content pages or articles.
• 12,054,067 registered users.
• Photo sharing platform.
• Contains more than 4 billion images!
• Platform for sharing documents.
• 12 Million people visit the site every month
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How Are Organisations Globally
Leveraging Social Media
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Organizations Are Using Social Media
Marketing & Public Relation Campaigns
Talent Acquisition
Reference checks and background verification
Medium for communication to internal and
external stakeholders
Customer Feedback Mechanism
Knowledge Management
Viral Marketing
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On an average, Fortune 100 Companies post 3.6
wall posts to their Facebook page per week.
80% of Fortune 500 Companies Use LinkedIn
for recruitment.
50% of the Fortune 100 have a YouTube account
and upload 10 videos on average a month.
82% of the Fortune 100 update and engage with
customers on their Twitter account per week.
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Talent Acquisition
Organisations are using Facebook, LinkedIn,
Twitter & You Tube to:
post information about themselves,
about job opportunities available,
experiences of employees currently working
with them.
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The Sr. Manager, Recruitment and Resourcing Marketing at KPMG, estimates that around
19% of traffic to the company recruitment page comes from social media sites.
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Recruitment Advertising On Twitter by PepsiCo
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Talent Acquisition
Organisations are posting videos on You
Tube showcasing:
A Day in the Life of an employee
Experiences of Interns
Corporate events & outings
Career Growth plans – experiences of star
performers
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Case Study: Hardware @ Microsoft
Background:
For 25 years Microsoft has been asked “while you
are known for software, what is your vision for the
hardware business?”
The Problem: Recruitment of top-tier engineers in
Microsoft Europe.
Couldn’t recruit engineers for key product development
Needed to recruit world-class hardware & reliability
engineering talent
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Case Study: Hardware @ Microsoft
Microsoft’s Approach: 1. Understanding the
target audience:
Where employed?
Where they went to school?
What associations they joined?
What they read?
Passive job seekers?
Out of 620,000 engineers, they had a pool of 2500+
that were reliability engineers
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Case Study: Hardware @ Microsoft
Microsoft’s Approach: 2. Social Media Used:
LinkedIn Group – not just for recruiting, but for engineers to network and
share ideas
Facebook
• Hardware@Microsoft page
Twitter
• Hardwarejobs
Members of the 2500+ base were invited to become fans and follow on
Twitter
Built “micro-communities” on 5-10 sites to reach maximum network
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Case Study: Hardware @ Microsoft
The Outcome:
Microsoft saved an estimated £60,000 and was
able to source candidates with specialist IT
skills from across Europe.
Through LinkedIn searches seven out of nine
positions were filled.
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Direct Savings Using LinkedIn: Some
More Examples
Using LinkedIn:
HCL India saved INR 2,400,000 in recruitment
fees in a year. s
SAB Miller saved £1.2m in a year by
employing 120 people directly from LinkedIn.
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Writing Job Descriptions!
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Reference Checks and
Background Verification
Organisations are using the information available
on Facebook & LinkedIn to investigate details
about potential employees such as :
• who they know
• who knows them
• views on various subjects to ascertain fitment
into organisational culture
• validation of resume
• looking up recommendations
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Knowledge Management
In house developed, Social Media platforms are
the new networks for managing knowledge.
Know Net – the KM portal of L&T solves problems
occurring at project sites.
ICICI Bank uses the “Wise Guy” portal internally.
Infosys uses the Kshop where knowledge generated
across projects globally is captured & shared.
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Communication With Internal &
External Stakeholders
Organisation are setting up Internal Company HR blogs or
sites:
Communication by Top Mangement
Sharing of positive news
Vision for future
Clarification of rumors
Example: Cognizant Technologies - Vibrant internal
blogging culture where feedback is openly given to seniors.
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Communication With Internal &
External Stakeholders
Some organisations have set up Alumni Networks on Social Networking platforms
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Communication With Internal & External
Stakeholders
Infosys - 1st Indian company to have an
official Social Media Policy. It has blogs, an
official Infy channel on YouTube, a
Facebook page and it is also on Twitter.
Hexaware Technologies – Uses LinkedIn
for Recruitment and Facebook for building
employee & alumni networks.
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On The Other Side …
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51% of companies fear that social media could
be detrimental to employee productivity.
49% of companies fear that employees’ use of
social media could damage their reputation.
80% of executives view social media as a
liability.
(*Ethos Business Law/ Russell Herder Social Media Study , 2009)
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The Fears
Leakage of Confidential Information
Network Security Threats
Embarrassing Employee Actions
Ownership of Content
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Employee Social Media Mistakes
Some Examples ..
Dominos fired 2 employees, who were filmed wiping mucus onto
sandwiches & who then uploaded the video on to You Tube . (The
Company had to issue apologies on Facebook and Twitter, and produced an apology video
on YouTube).
In February, a member of Vodafone’s social media team
posted a homophobic remark to Vodafone’s 8,500 followers on
Twitter. (Vodafone suspended the employee, ’s issued multiple apologies and
deleted the comment, however a lots of retweets circulated and its image was
hurt).
“Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a
fatty pay check against the daily commute to San Jose and hating
the work.” (Cisco withdrew the offer from this candidate)
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Social Media Mistakes: Fallout
In 2009:
15 % of US companies disciplined an employee for
violating multimedia sharing / posting policies.
13 % investigated an exposure event involving
mobile or Web-based short message services.
17 % disciplined an employee for violating blog or
message board policies.
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And This Leads To …
• An All Out ban on Social Media.
• Less than 1 in 3 businesses have a social media policy.
• Less than 1 in 10 businesses have conducted social
media training.
(*Ethos Business Law/ Russell Herder Social Media Study , 2009)
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Challenges
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So What Can Organisations Do?
Don’t ban
Don’t ignore
Welcome & use wisely
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The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, recently
lifted its ban on social networking sites.
Brad Taylor, head of HR at the institute, says: "This was a way to
encourage a responsible approach towards social media access
on the part of staff and also to help them see how we are trying
to use it with our students and members.
I was (and still am) cautious about us doing this, but hopefully it
will help to develop an organisational culture of trust and
empowerment we are seeking here."
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What Can Organisations Do
Create an Social Media policy which clearly defines the Do’s &
Don’ts.
Explain clearly to all employees:
Absolute responsibility for all the content put up by them.
Never to divulge confidential information & the consequences
thereof.
Never engage in conversations pertaining to religion, politics or
customers & competitors.
Company policies (like anti-harassment) extend to online behavior.
Remind Employees that postings on the Internet are
permanent.
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So Where Does An HR Student
Fit In All This??
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Managers of Generation X,Y & Z employees.
Social Media Savvy : Need to learn how to respond to the social & communication
changes that the wide spread usage of these tools is bringing to the workplace.
Partner with organisation to leverage Social Media for maximum gains.
Talent Acquisition
Verification of Applicant Background
Talent Engagement
Alumni Networks
Understand & define Social Media policies for respective organisations.
Develop policies to internally recognise and reward employees who voluntarily
take on social media responsibilities.
Conduct Social Media behaviour training for employees.
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Thank You
Questions??
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