Step 2: get socially savvy
Goal: use social networking to your advantage in managing employee relationships
For years, many employers have responded to social media sites in what many see as a relatively arbitrary manner: by banning them completely. A recent 3 Mobile Australia poll found 55 per cent of Australians said their bosses had banned social networking sites, compared with 20 per cent reporting bans in the UK, 12 per cent in France, 11 per cent in Spain, 10 per cent in Germany and 6 per cent in Italy. A 2007 survey, by security company Sophos, found that 43 per cent of the 600 respondents reported Facebook being blocked by employers.
Such bans have become increasingly difficult to police, however, since companies cannot control workers' use of the services at home or even, with ever more powerful smartphone applications now available, via mobile from the office. Given the proliferation of options for users, forward-looking managers — especially those who genuinely want to identify and resolve morale issues — will want to take a more proactive stance to avoid being lambasted in public, global forums by employees who might nonetheless be reticent to raise issues directly with their supervisors.
This doesn't necessarily mean lifting bans, which can be justified for any number of reasons including productivity — but it does mean actively engaging employees online. The easiest way to do this is to sign up for some of the more popular sites — Twitter, for example — and see what you can find. Start with an employee you know is online (most people use real names), check out their profile and you can see who they are "following" (connected to). Read their updates (Twitter updates are freely available to the public, unless users specify protected updates) or click to follow them on an ongoing basis.
More-progressive employers are leading by example, by joining sites like Facebook and friending their workers who — whether cowed into stunned acceptance or genuinely interested in building an online bond — are likely to accept. People search engine www.yasni.co.uk recently found that 86 per cent of the 1203 surveyed UK residents did not want to be "friends" with their boss — yet almost 80 per cent said they've accepted a Facebook friend request they didn't want to, but felt they had no other choice.
"When our miserable boss who rarely even talks to us in the office adds us as a 'friend'," Yasni CEO Steffen Ruehl says, "it's no wonder people assume they just want to keep tabs on them."
This power can be incredibly useful: many bosses actively use Facebook to keep tabs on employees, often with interesting results such as the call centre worker caught by his HR department feigning a sick day. Remember, however, that employees will know who's in their social network, so it's important not to be seen as overly intrusive (Facebook provides means to block certain "friends" from specific information, but, according to Michael Argast, director of global sales engineering at Sophos, set-up for this can be very involved and the tools are not that easy to find, so many users don't even bother).
If you don't want to be seen as stalking your employees, a more proactive stance may be useful. Set up a Twitter account or a Facebook group to update employees about work-related events — keeping in mind, of course, not to post confidential or company-sensitive information.
Build up a rapport by creating your own personal Facebook page, and you may be surprised at how many employees are happy to involve you. They probably won't rant about you if they know you're listening, but showing genuine concern about their well-being may pay off by removing their need to rant in the first place. As an interesting aside, blogger David Spencer offers employees five reasons why they should friend their boss.
