How the social web is changing Human Resources

The human resource department is responsible for:

1. Recruitment, selection and onboarding
2. Employer branding
3. Organizational design and development
4. Change management
5. Performance and behavior management
6. Employee relations
7. Workforce management
8. Compensation, rewards and benefits management
9. Training and development

To summarize, human resourcesʼ role is to manage external and internal talent. This is one of the few departments that has traditionally been ignored and undervalued by most company leaders. But I see this quickly changing! Why?

The social web.

Social media is quickly showing company leaders that it is the people, both inside and out, that make companies profitable. You can have the most amazing product but you need the best people to produce, promote, sell and deliver your amazing product. And it is the responsibility of human resources to make sure that the best people are recruited, trained, managed, developed and retained in an outstanding way.

3 main areas I see social media impacting human resources:

1. Recruiting
2. Employer branding
3. Employee relations

### Recruiting
Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are changing the way companies recruit. These sites are allowing recruitment organizations to learn about candidates before they hire them. These sites are providing a new forum to communicate with and engage with future talent on a one-on-one basis before they even come to an interview. These sites are providing recruiting with talent communities that companies can refer to for sourcing and hiring the right candidates. These sites are reducing the recruitment advertising needs which is a large cost for many companies.

### Employer branding
The social web has provided an arena for people to freely provide their opinions. Whether it is a story about never receiving a phone call back from a recruiter, an incompetent manager or the story behind why someone got fired. Social media is forcing human resources to think and work in new ways, especially with their employer brand. We can no longer write an employer value proposition, we already have one. So companies now have to first listen, connect and engage in conversations to understand and impact their employer brand. Take a look at the blog “Donʼt work for Meltwater News!” http://antimeltwater.blogspot.com and imagine how this has impacted their employer brand.

### Employee relations
Employees are not only representing your brand 9 hours a day, they represent your brand before and after work, 24 hours a day on sites like Facebook and Twitter! This means that we have to listen, ask and answer our employees in new ways. We have to listen to them at work and throughout the social web. We have to ask them at work and throughout the social web. We have to answer them at work and throughout the social web.

The last few years have not been all that exciting for human resources but as Bob Dylan says “The Times They Are A-Changin!”

Company leaders, can you risk not prioritizing HR?