Seven Social Media Trends for Engaging the Workforce

7
social media trends for engaging the workforce
FLEISHMAN-HILLARD
October 14, 2009

Today’s presenters
Interact
Live on Twitter
@HeatherSTL
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Becky Ericson@beckyericson
Don EtlingModerator
Lisa Weser@lisaweser

Social media is changing the employee communications landscape.

Moving Mainstream & Maturing
Adoption Rates
300+ million users
55+ million users
50+ million users
AverageAge
27
31
40+
37
Trends:
Boomers, and specifically women 54+, are the fastest growing adopters
Globalization
Sources: Nielsen Online, Global Index, December 2007-2008; Nielsen Global Faces and Networked Places, 2009

3 out of 4 Americans use social technology
Visits to social sites increased 62 percent in the last year
Visiting social sites is now the 4th most popular online activity—ahead of personal email
Time spent on social networks is growing at 3x the overall Internet rate, accounting for ~10 percent of all internet time
Nearly 7 billion text messages are sent every day
Sources: Forrester, the growth of social technology adoption, 2008; Nielsen, global faces & networked places, 2009; Brian Solis blog

In the Workplace, Digital Doesn’t Replace Face-to-Face…
2%
1%
2%
4%
What channel do you find most effective for communicating to employees?
16%
75%
Source: New Frontiers in Employee Communications

…But Adoption is Heating Up
79% of business communicators report using social tools frequently to engage employees and foster productivity
75% of employees have used social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) for business purposes
70% of companies allow / encourage employees to use social media
50% of employers allow employees to speak freely (without moderation) on corporate social networking sites
Source: Awareness Networks 2009

Social Media as anEmployee Engagement Tool

The Elusive “It” Factor
“It” is employee engagement:
A heightened emotional connection that influences an employee to exert greater discretionary effort for the benefit of the company

What Drives Engagement?
Companies that communicate effectively are 4.5 times more likely to report high levels of employee engagement
Senior leaders who care
Managers’ feedback and dialogue
Frequent and authentic communication
A voice that matters
Learning and growth opportunities
Focusedon customer satisfaction
Good cross-business unit collaboration
Quality relationships
Source: Gallup 2009

…And Engagement, In Turn, Drives Business Results
Knowledge-sharing
Collaboration
Speed and quality of problem-solving
Innovation
Job satisfaction
Profitability
Turnover
Operating costs
Sources: Aberdeen Group, Melcrum

7
New Tools of the TradeBest Practices, Best in Class Brands

TREND 1
Mobile Tools
13

Mobile Messaging
AT&T’s ExecTxt
Short-code system sends text messages to employees’ mobile phones
Opt-in, voluntary
Employees subscribe to executives/lists of their choice
Alerts employees to urgent, time-sensitive news and big announcements
Reaches the distributed workforce

Mobile Videos and Podcasts
Kraft
Kraft Casts from CEO/executives
Keeps workforce connected and aligned on the go
Glidden
Product line and branding training tool for mobile sales force
Glidden paint reps review handheld videos with Home Depot reps

There’s An App for That
Trek Apps for Training and Sales
Trains sales associates on latest products
Sales floor selling tool
AT&T 2009 Officers Conference App
App supports conference content
Agendas, calendar, maps, videos, messaging

Townhall 2.0
TREND 2

Virtual, Socially-Enabled Events
Interactive Town Hall
Used to hold company-wide town halls
Avatar-based, interactive meeting system
Employee –generated profile pages and avatars
Live, moderated, real-time
Submitter’s questions and answers are converted to a computerized voice that reads them aloud

Advanced Virtual Meetings
From Skype…
More companies are using Skype and other custom solutions to collaborate across offices
File-sharing and instant messaging optimizes collaboration
…to Telepresence
Advanced telepresence technologies simulate in-person meetings with high interactivity and richness

TREND 3
Social
Learning

The Starbucks Partner Cafe
Unites more than 136,000 partners to training resources and each other
Encourages easy exchange of knowledge and collaboration
Dialogue is tied to business unit objectives
Offers a more private, yet collaborative, solution for teams to knowledge-share
Digital Self-Development

Social, Collaborative Training Platforms
Rank/rate training modules and can recommend to others
Supports multiple learning-styles
Employees submit content for training
Quick adoption – 100 employees submitted ideas for training in first 60 days
Creates a “Results-Only Learning Environment”
Best Buy’s Learning Lounge

TREND 4
Social Portals

In the absence of an internal
playground, employees will post their graffiti outside your walls….
24

Portals Adopt Social Functionality
AT&T’s Insider Employee Portal
Serves 300,000 employees
More than 120,000 unique users hit the site daily
Social media elements: page customization, commenting, ranking, polls
Newest features: tReader, RSS and Twitter news feed

Allows employees to self-manage their employee directory information in a LinkedIn-like environment
Creates more robust employee data – interests, experience
Strengthens “weak” connections to aid networking and collaboration
Internal Social Networking
Booz Allen Hamilton’s Hello.bah.com

IBM’s beehive
Internal Social Communities
Internal, secure, customized community looks and feels like Facebook
Allows employees to connect, track each others’ activities, share lists, post photos and schedule events
Gives communicators constant pulse on what employees are talking about
High employee adoption rate
35,000 + registered
280,000 + employee connections

External Ning Communities
Coca-Cola’s Employee Community
Community managers verify membership
Customizable platform for building your own employee social network
Provides chat, blogging, forums, groups and photo/video sharing
Over 1.2 million unique social networks and 27 million users

Digitizing the Frontline
TREND 5

Crew Communities
McDonald’s StationM
Connects geographically dispersed franchise crew employees
Integrates video/photo sharing with Flickr, YouTube
Features blogs by nominated employees
Builds employee connections and shared cultural understanding
Multilingual, serving over 1 million crew members in the U.S. and Canada

Best Buy’s “BSN Mix”
Blue Shirt Nation ReMixed
2.0 version of its touted Blue Shirt Nation
Blends social community and micro-blogging functionality
Employees interact and share business-related content
Accessible via SMS, Web or e-mail
Allows senior management to “mix” with retail employees

TREND 6
Targeting Your Audience
Art direction: Change to an Aiming / Target graphic
Crowdsourced Innovation

Innovation Jams
3M InnovationLive
Live, virtual sessions solicit ideas, comments and ratings
Fosters global product and service collaboration
Post-session review necessary to identify viable ideas

Social Brainstorming
Dell EmployeeStorm
10,000 ideas submitted
45,000 site users
48,000 votes in first 60 days
200 ideas implemented
My Starbucks Idea/ Ideas in Action Blog
70,000 ideas submitted
160,000 site users
658,000 votes
25 ideas implemented

Collaborative Games and Simulations
Boehringer Ingelheim’s “BI Collaboratory”
Month-long virtual, team-based competition
144 teams developed a concept to bring value to BI’s customers and patients in new ways
Teams post presentations of their concepts to the site for peer voting
Winning ideas earn reward and recognition
98 percent participation

TREND 7
Employees as Digital Ambassadors

Your Employees, Online…
Brand Ambassadors?
…Or Brand Assassins?

Employee Word of Mouth Blogs
AT&T’s Calm, Cool & Connected Parent Blog
“Best ROI I’ve ever seen.”

Employee-Generated Video
Deloitte’s Employee Film Festival: What’s Your Deloitte?
2,000 employees participated
400 submissions received
Posted internally for peer voting
Winning videos shared on YouTube

Twitter Ambassadors
Best Buy on Twitter
Best Buy’s pledge to its employee Twelpforce?“You’ll know it as we know it”

7 Social Media Trends for Engaging the Workforce
Mobile Tools
Townhall 2.0
Social Learning
Social Portals
Digitizing the Frontline
Crowdsourced Innovation
Employees as Digital Ambassadors
Now what?

Building a bicycle while you ride it
“When it comes to a social media strategy, like most companies, we’re building the bicycle while we ride it.” – 3MJane

There’s No “One Size Fits All” Approach for Organizations
Think about:
Synching internal culture with the external brand
Gauging leadership appetite for risk and experimentation
Matching tactics with measurable business objectives
Identifying needs for new tools vs. existing tools in need of a “digital facelift”
Evaluating available IT platforms
Identifying resources for community management/moderation
Defining what success will look like, feel like

Portals and Sitelets
Videos and Podcasts
Digital Newsletters
Ambassador Programs
Social Media Policies
Governance Models
Monitoring and Metrics
Innovation
We can help
www.fleishman.com

7
social media trends for engaging the workforce
FLEISHMAN-HILLARD
www.fleishman.com

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Seven Social Media Trends for Engaging the Workforce

by Fleishman-Hillard Internal Communications

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