influence social media has (or could have) on H.R.M. success

 influence social media has (or could have) on H.R.M. success

Introduction

Social media comprise mainly of internet and mobile tools which allowed people to share and collaborate information. The use of social media has improved with time and gained importance in our lives. In this way, human resource managers in the organization have adopted the use of social media in recruitment and as a form of communication to workers. Hence, LinkedIn, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter are some of the social media platforms that is changing the way people interact in organizations.

Discuss the influence social media has (or could have) on H.R.M. success.

Social media influences the success of human resource management in different ways. First, an organization using social media can be able to improve on their recruitment techniques. In the current world, few organizations are posting a job advertisement in the newspaper. Alternately, many recruiters are turning to social media as the sites for attracting the top talent. Furthermore, through social media, recruiters can advertise the existing position and the high number of people can share among themselves. This makes it easier for human resource managers to select the best applicant from a pool of candidates. As a result, they are making the recruitment process faster and effective.

Second, many organizations use social media platforms as a way of communicating with the workers and improve productivity. For instance, professional social media platform such as LinkedIn enables the employee to join group discussions and interact easily with another professional in the same industry. In other words, human resource managers can build networking, both internal and external with workers. For that reason, this increases job satisfaction and minimizes employee turnover. Also, when employers want to communicate important issues to the employees, they can use social sites such as WhatsApp group to engage their employees and discuss the matter. This improves communication and reduces the time waste of writing an email and waiting for employees to respond.

What are the challenges of H.R.M. professionals using social media to learn about current

and potential employees?

There is many opportunities for using social media in human resource management. However, there is also many challenges that H.R.M. professional are experiencing, especially to learn about both potential and current workers. One of the challenges is ensuring a suitable employee who compiles with the government bodies requirement like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The problem can arise when the human resource recruiter uses or concentrates in particular social media networks platforms such as LinkedIn. In this way, the recruiter only considers a small sample of considerable internet labour poor population. When using LinkedIn, the organization will only be able to attract individuals who understands and uses LinkedIn and leave out those who do not use the platform. Hence, it makes it difficult to attract a large pool of candidates for a given vacancy in the organization.

H.R.M. professionals could not be able to understand the skills of the current employee, mainly if the employee was employed using social media. Majority of potential employees does not reveal who they are or skills they possess on social media. Furthermore, likely workers focus more on what they can deliver to the organization and not necessarily expose their weakness concerning the job. For that reason, this makes it difficult for H.R.M. professionals to understand the fundamental skills the potential worker possesses. Accordingly, the use of social media can encourage the prospective worker to spend most of their time online instead of focusing on their duty. This reduces the productivity level of the organization and makes it difficult to understand if actually, the potential employee understands their role in the organization.

The Wright article talks about how Facebook recruits. Bring in three other real-life, private sector employers (by name from your readings/research) and discuss their approaches to social media in the H.R.M. context.

Dell is one of the multinational companies in the United States of America that has adopted the use of social medial in its H.R.M. context. In its social media profiles, Dell company has effectively highlighted the community culture. Furthermore, through its Facebook page, the Dell company highlights the value that it places on its workers. As a result, the company uses Facebook to engage workers and to ensure that the employee’s feel valued. In this way, good user engagement can assist bring potential employees into the conversation. As a result, inviting the employees to consider what is working for the organization and in turn, encourage talented candidates to apply for a various vacancy with the Dell.

Jon Bischke is Entelo C.E.O. who have adopted social media as its recruitment strategy. As noted, the Jon explains that he can be able to predict when people are coming to the market by indexing social information at massive scale. The data is then aggregated to form what is known as super profiles. Furthermore, Entelo C.E.O. considers available information on blogs and also social networks concerning potential candidates and call it a 360-degree view of a person. This not only saves on time but also ensures the right candidates are obtained for a given job. Besides, Entelo uses predictive analytics to assist customers in identifying employees who are likely to leave their jobs. Such data is considered as leading indicators of when an individual is coming into the market.

Conclusion

H.R.M. professionals have considered social media platform for recruitment improving communication with employees. However, there is few challenges, such as recruiting right candidates, and social media remains a crucial platform towards ensuring a large pool of candidates is obtained in the market.

Davenport, T. H. (2012). Case study: Social media engages employees.FT.Com, Retrieved from the Trident Online Library.

Segal, J. A., & LeMay, J., S.P.H.R. (2014). Should employers use social media to screen job applicants? H.R. Magazine, 59(11), 20-21. Retrieved from ProQuest in the Trident Online Library

Wilkie, D., & Wright, A. (2014). Balance risks of screening social media activity. H.R. Magazine, 59(5), 14. Retrieved from ProQuest in the Trident Online Library.

Wright, A. Nov. 2014). How Facebook recruits. Retrieved from http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/technology/articles/pages/how-facebook-recruits.aspx

Walden, J. A. (2016). Integrating Social Media Into the Workplace: A Study of Shifting Technology Use Repertoires. Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 60(2), 347-363. Available in the Trident Online Library