The Employee Engagement Index

Companies want to pick the low hanging fruit, but when it comes to social media, it seems they are not seeing the ‘low hanging fruit.  Many companies are creating corporate social media accounts but fail not only to communicate them to their clients but also their employees.  A lot of companies do not mention their social media accounts on their website allthough that is changing.

Companies, especially the marketeers, are struggling to get engaged fans/followers/connections, etc.  A lot of effort is put in creative marketing to be able to attract clients and have them become ambassadors. Through these fans/followers they hope to get their messages amplified.

But what about engaging your employees as ambassadors and amplificators.   During a series of awareness sessions in different companies, i could not help to see that few people were actually following their company on platforms such as twitter, facebook or linkedin. The main reason being a lack of information and awareness. Companies expect their employees to follow these account automatically. There are a few simple solutions to address this situation and could include:

• Social media awareness sessions
• Mention all  accounts in the social media policy
• Training program includes following all company accounts
• Email and intranet campaign to increase account awareness
• Adding links to intranet and website

How do you measure if you are successful? Why not create an Employee Engagement Index.   The number could reflect a ratio such as:

1. # of employees  following corporate accounts divided by total employee count
2. # of employees that follow corporate accounts divided by the employees on social media (or specific platform)

This number by itself is not so important. It serves as a baseline. Tracking the progression as you undertake social media awareness building is more important. It will provide you with insight of how well you are doing.

The next challenge is get corporate messages amplified by these people. Here too there are several scenario’s. The best of all worlds is that your employees take the initiative to share message by themselves but we all know this is the most difficult route.  the WIIFM factor has to big. Alternatively, you could offer tools to re-publish but that is really a bad idea. People want to be in control of what they share with their network.  And then there are some tools available (www.gaggleamp.com) that allow users to select what they forward. In any case, the network of your employees is the first step to client engagement and conversation.

Which innovating techniques and tools are you using to use your employees as amplificators and ambassadors?

Are you ruining your business reputation?

When it comes to business networking, LinkedIn has been the trusted platform of choice. A large number of members are conscious of the fact that they need to have a professional profile. A further reduced number is making the most of the “Status update” to bring value to their network and drive traffic to good content. Over the last weeks and months, the level of professionalism of the “Status Updates” has dropped considerably. When you were looking for people that said that “hated their job” or “were bored”, you needed to do this on platforms such as Facebook. We all remember the “OMG, I hate my job post on Facebook”.

Well, today you can find similar posts on LinkedIn with compliments of Twitter.  Thanks to LinkedIn Signal search option, these messages now become very apparent and public.  I am even convinced the people who have these types of posts are no longer aware of the fact they linked their Twitter account to their LinkedIn account.  So messages such as below are now regulars on LinkedIn reducing the level of professionalism of certain people.

On another note, we all know the name calling of Facebook, but say welcome to similar expressions on LinkedIn!  Here are some examples.

Do you really want your professional reputation tarnished by these types of comments?  Your co-workers are listening to you on business networks… not to mention your current and future employers.

Though it is simple to connect your social media accounts, you really need to think this through.  Do you really want people to see where you are eating (Foursquare to Twitter to LinkedIn)? What you are doing in the garden or what store you are at?  If you are a frequent Twitterer, the constant status updates will annoy the hell out of your contacts and you will soon be stopped being followed in professional networks achieving the opposite of what you were aiming for.

If you want update your status on multiple networks, consider using tools such as tweetdeck or hootsuite where at least you know where you are posting the messages.  And remember to disconnect all post-through actions.

Do you need a social media …?

Congratulations!  After attending a presentation or training, you and your company have decided to embrace social media.  You create a number of profiles on several platforms and you think you are well on your way to success.

Yes, you have completed a first step, but that happened to be simplest one.  But then comes the rude awakening!

Some of you will jump in without thinking about the work it takes to generate (own) content and to maintain the interaction or conversation with your contacts/friends/audience.  From a personal experience, I also get a lot the remarks that it is much work to maintain the different platforms (even with some simple tools).

Enters the “social media xxx” role or function. Over the last week I have tried to get a sense of what “xxx” could stand for.  With the use of LinkedIn, here are some examples: officer, manager, guru, community manager, solution manager, marketing manager, consultant, specialist, expert, etc.  Many different and creative titles to explore, but what is important is what this person actually does and where he/she fits in into the organization.

Looking at the general job description, this person has to take of:

1. Building awareness within the organization of what social media is and how it can be used.
2. Creating a social media strategy for the company and assisting employees to become ambassadors to this strategy.
3. Creating an inventory of where the company is and needs to be as well as where the employees of the company are.
4. Creating social media policies for the company.  A set of guidelines (formal or not) on how the company and its employees will use social media.
5. Continuous training of employees on the selected social media platforms.
6. Select and implement social media monitoring tools (both external listening as internal listening)
7. Listen to what is being said about the company, the products and the people using the tools implemented and channel the messages to the appropriate person that will engage with the audience. The social media xxx might not be the right person to engage with the audience.
8. Engage or assist the person who is engaging with the audience.
9. Create KPIs or ROI measurements for social media

10.  Engage personally to continuously grow your own knowledge and experience of social media.

Looking at this daunting list of tasks, you can see that even in a small company this could become a full time job very fast.  Also note that the background to fill this position must be diverse and able to engage with different people at different levels in the organization.  You have to be able to talk to general management (helicopter view) over sales, marketing, IT, HR, admin (specific view) to becoming a trainer.

So my recommendation is that this person has a free role within the company and reports to the CEO (and not marketing or any other department).  Yes, you could outsource part or all of your social media function but keep in mind that within your organization you will still need someone to coordinate it.

When are you hiring your social media officer?

5 steps to implement a social networking policy

As I recently read, controlling Social Networking is like herding sheep.  You can close them in but beware some might escape and you will have to chase them back in; or you let it open and some will run away and do dangerous things.  In any case you need guidelines and this as of the first employee that uses Social Media and Networking!

Have you seen the number of articles appear that tell us of social networking sites, especially Facebook and Twitter) being closed down by IT – the hard way!  Actually, a study done by the Belgian IT magazine (Smart Business Strategies) this week confirms this.  But this does not really solve the problem as employees will look for other ways to participate and companies will have to sit back and be reactive.  Why not being proactive?

Rather than being reactive or repressive, would it not make more sense to provide guidance to your employees?  But how do you start this?  I have come up with a simple 5 step approach:

Step 1: Create awareness of what social networking is, who are the providers, what are the benefits and what are the dangers.

Step 2: Create an Inventory of where the company and its employees are active today in social media and networking.  You will be amazed about the number of platforms you get!

Step 3: Create Social Networking Policies.

Step 4: Provide the necessary Training on the platforms that are most common and fall within the guidelines of the policy.

Step 5: Monitor the progress from a brand and person point of view.

Going through these 5 steps and working with the employees, companies will be able to create proactive and constructive guidelines that work.

Retention Management Revisited

Business meets IT.  I was at a MINOC event on the subject of Retention Management.  Interesting event but strange to see that so many players in IT market are not present.  Maybe retention management is not on the agenda due to the crisis, which I learned to be “a time to take your chances” and not to hide from the limelight.

Here are some lessons I retained from the Business part:

• HR management is fighting the same battles as CIOs.  Not part of the board due to not speaking “board language” – stop whining and do something about it – learn!
• Retention starts with approaching recrutement as a process with a deliverable for both parties- Not only candidate needs to sell himself, but HR must sell the company to the candidate which is nearly never done. Candidates have choices too!
• The CEO has to have a heart and put a fight in the retention battle: fostering development, initiative and advice if not retention will never become part of your culture.

The market survey on retention featured following highlights:

• Machine decrease in value over time (amortized), people increase value over time – duh!
• Digital communication creates and even greater gap between HR and employees – a computer as a fence to stop face to face communication- what a concept!
• Employees now get less training days and less benefits, that cost money – HR and  creativity – uncharted waters…
• Need to work smarter – decentralize when possible, thus keepîng the rotten apples out of the view and contact of the good apples – not a bad concept!