Gauging your staff’s social media awareness
Boards and leadership now recognise that culture is expressed and shaped online as well as in the workplace. In a previous Director Download for AICD, I spoke about the problem of culture being intangible but at the same time easily VISIBLE, online and offline.
“Culture is intangible… but at the same time easily visible…”
There are many ways culture is built, emphasised or even broken down via online communications, including:
- Formal representations e.g. website, media releases
- Informal representations e.g. staff personal social media pages and activity
- Internal communications e.g. email, intranet
- External communications e.g. culture and management ratings such as on Glass Door
Staff might truly want the best for the organisation but not be aware of how their online activity is impacting both their own professional image and by extension, that of the organisation they work for.
While you might consider using measurement tools to take the pulse of your online culture, how do you know where to start? You may begin with some simple discussions to better understand staff’s social media awareness.
I recently suggested these reasonably non-threatening questions to a client to ask of his staff, in order to open up the conversation about how social media impacts the organisation:
- What kind of social media platforms do you like to use and how often?
- Do you see LinkedIn as potentially being helpful to your work or that of other staff?
- Do you have any reservations about how to use LinkedIn (or other social media platforms)?
- Do you have any concerns or questions about how to represent the company online?
Open, non-invasive communication is a great place to start to get a constructive and honest conversation going. To ensure it doesn’t feel like a witch hunt, it’s important to frame the enquiry as one in which we can all work together to learn and achieve more through online platforms in and around work – remembering that people’s personal profiles are their own, and it’s not about imposing ‘rules’ to restrict staff, but rather empowering them through discussion and education.
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