Employee voice through social media – good practice guidelines

Employee voice through social media – good practice guidelines

In our last blog www.ipm.co.za/employee-voice-through-social-media, we spoke about some of the benefits of using social media platforms to provide your employees with a voice and to enable them to share information and ideas across the organisation. We ended with asking the question – what should you consider in terms of your own internal engagement using social media? In this blog we’ll provide a few good practice guidelines for HR managers.

Policies

Have clear and simple policies in place, says Rachel Pinto on HRZone. These social media policies should cover how employees use social media created for work purposes. They draw boundaries around what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable, and help to raise awareness of what is expected of employees.

Clear purpose

Are you aiming to build a sense of community?  Are you seeking insights into business critical issues or challenges?

Be clear about what you want to get out of social media as an engagement tool in your organisation, and ensure that you communicate this to your employees.

Management involvement

It is important for leaders to be engaged with platforms especially as they launch. You want employees to take tools that are set up for the benefit of everyone at the organisation seriously, and to engage with them. Pinto says we must be sure to get the balance right however, as too much input from senior management only can give the impression its another top-down management tool.

And remember this important point from the CIPD, Europe’s largest people management professional body:

‘If it is not heard, it is not genuine voice.’

If you are going to ask employees to speak up, ensure that you acknowledge what is said and that you communicate what happens as a result of the feedback and good ideas you get. This makes employees feel heard, and encourages everyone to get involved.

If you want to find out more about Social Media and HR, the CIPD provides a selection of tailored resources and reports here.

Are you using social media platforms in your organisation? Tell us more.