The topic of social media gets a lot of coverage these days! People who you know well (and some not so well) want to “friend” you, others want to “link up” to you, and then they would like to send you a “tweet”. In today's world, being connected through social media is becoming as important as having an email address. Many use social media to share information about themselves or discuss a topic or issue that is important to them. Interestingly enough, there are many business who have decided that allowing access to social media during business hours will tempt employees to waste time rather than to “work”. These same businesses thought the same way when the internet was widely used. While there will always be employees who will abuse services, the majority of them used the internet to gather information to use for work purposes. The internet was not only a means to educate the employee, it also made them more productive at work! Social media can also educate and help employees to be more productive.
Wikipedia describes social media as supporting “....the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers”. A simple way to develop employees is by empowering them to share their knowledge and experiences with others. Here are some ideas on how social media tools can be used for employee development:
A group of employees you manage just went through training together. Pick an objective from the training program and ask your employees how they will be using that aspect of the training in there work using Twitter.
Form a group on Linkedin for your employees based on a theme, say Customer Service. Post typical customer scenarios and ask employees to respond on how they've handled similar scenarios in the past successfully.
Create a blog site for your department. Feature a guest blogger, one of your employees, on a topic of interest to the department or company (employees choice).
Create a short video clip on a business topic and post on YouTube. Link the video to Facebook and have employees weigh in (movie review) on the topic being discussed.
Not all topics can be shared in this manner (company sensitive data should not be put on public domains), however, these are ways to engage employees in soft skill development and on topics that are relevant to the industry.
How do you see social media being used for employee development?
Sandra - Thanks for this great article on setting the stage for using social media in learning. Using social media tools effectively can get you the answers to everyday challenges so much faster than struggling by yourself. In a way - social learning can break down the silos we often find ourselves in.
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