New Communications Behind the Firewall

New Communications Behind the Firewall Presented by: Francesca Karpel, SNCR Fellow, Senior Manager, NetApp 6 th Annual SNCR Research Symposium November 3-4, Harvard University’s Faculty Club www.sncr.org

What’s Important Gets Communicated

What’s Important to an Organization?
What’s important to an organization?
- To a business?
How effective is social media in communicating this information?
What makes people trust a way of communicating?

Is there a need or reason to change the status quo, current way of communicating?
Change in employee demographics
Global dispersion of workforce
Younger employees joining the workforce
Change in the external environment
Speed of doing business

Overview of Data
No requirement to answer all questions
149 surveys started: 76 completed
Survey was too long: many did not complete
117 maximum # of answers to any question
Most responses around 30+ or 40+
Like reviewing notes from focus groups
Survey open from May 19, 2011 to September 13, 2011

Respondent Demographics
Gender
- Male 36
- Female 36
n=72.

Respondent Age n=74.

Respondents from Across Organizations n=73 . Answer Response % Corporate communications 24 33% Marketing 8 11% Public relations 5 7% IT 4 5% Market research 3 4% Customer Service 2 3% Knowledge Management 2 3% Product development 1 1% Community department 1 1% Sales 1 1% Human Resources 1 1% Multiple departments 1 1% Other 20 27% Total 73 100%

Most Respondents Have Communications Responsibilities What level of involvement and responsibility do you have for internal communication among employees... n=48. Answer Response % A member of the internal communications team 15 31% Responsible for internal communications within the organization 13 27% A senior executive 13 27% An employee not involved in the internal communications function 7 15% Total 48 100%

Organization Headquarters
Other
Cameroon
Romania
Headquarters primarily in North America and Europe n=72. Answer Response % USA 51 71% Europe 10 14% Canada 5 7% Asia/Australasia 2 3% S. America/Africa 2 3% Other 2 3%

Most Respondents from Small Organizations How large is your organization (number of employees)? Answer Response % 1 - 100< 100 20 27% 101 - 500 15 21% 501 -1,000 4 5% 1,001 - 5,000 5 7% 5,001 - 10,000 6 8% 10,001 – 50,000 14 19% 50,001 – 100,000 3 4% 100,001 – 1,000,000 6 8% More than 1,000,001 0 0% Total 73 100%

Range of Company’s Annual Revenues Most responses came from smaller companies/ organizations. Answer Response % Under $1million 6 9% $1 - $10 million 14 21% $10 - $50 million 11 17% $50 - $250 million 6 9% $250 - $500 million 5 8% $500 million - $1 billion 1 2% $1 - $5 billion 11 17% $6 - $10 billion 4 6% More than $10 billion 8 12% Total 66 100%

Does Your Organization Use Social Media Tools & Technologies for Internal Communication? Question with largest number of responses. n=117. Answer Response % Yes 82 68% No 38 32% Total 117 100%

Does Your Company Have a Social Intranet? **Social Intranet: An computer network or an internal website Answer Response % Yes 41 85% No 7 15% Total 48

Why Doesn't Your Organization Use Social Media for Internal Communications?
Other responses
Management hates social media
Don't think staff would use it.
Security issues
Our dealers are franchises - concerns of required constant monitoring of sites and content
Have not had any discussions about using it internally
The head of IT is paranoid
n=35. Answer Response % Not needed 11 31% Not offered 11 31% Plan to use it, but hadn't been implemented 5 14% Plan to use it in the near future 1 3% Difficult to access 1 3% Other 6 17% Total 35 100%

How is social media used behind the firewall?

Blogging, Communities, IM & Polls Most Popular What type of social media tools, technologies and features are you using for internal communication? (multiple responses ok) n=45. Answer Response % Blogging 31 67% Communities 31 67% Instant Message 28 61% Polls 22 48% Video Sharing 15 33% Photo Albums 13 28% RSS 13 28% Other 14 30%

Departments Driving Internal Community n=73. Answer Response % Corporate communications 20 27% Multiple departments 12 16% IT 11 15% Human Resources 9 12% Marketing 4 5% Public relations 4 5% Knowledge Management 3 4% Market research 1 1% Other 9 12% Total 73 100%

This Space is New: Wide Variety of Platforms Used Answer Response % SharePoint 23 53% Yammer 16 37% In-house custom solution 14 33% Wiki 11 26% Jive 5 12% Salesforce 5 12% SuccessFactors 3 7% SocialText 2 5% Drupal 2 5% IBM 2 5% Oracle 1 2% NewsGator 1 2% Huddle 1 2% Telligent 1 2% Lithium 1 2% Other 14 33%

The List Goes On: Other Platforms Used
Basecamp (2)
Socialcast (2)
Moxie Spaces
Netscape messenger
Skype, Blogs
jabber
Cisco IWE driven by Quad
Lotus Notes
Nimble, Bright Idea, other customized innovation & collaboration platforms
Ning

Still a Relatively New Space

For What Purposes Does Your Organization Use Social Media? n=48. Multiple responses requested It's used by home office employees to communicate with remote offices on a voluntary basis Recruiting Efforts To store and update training docs Advocacy efforts for pending government legislations and regulations Because IT decided to invest in it Engendering employee advocacy for our brand innovation, open innovation, and crowd sourcing Answer Response % Improve employee communication and collaboration 36 75% Increase connectedness between multiple locations/sites 31 65% Increase internal productivity 30 63% Disseminate corporate news with opportunity for employee discussion 29 60% Promote understanding of and buy-in to corporate strategy and objectives 22 46% Increase the voice of the employees 21 44% Other 10 21%

What Functions are Enabled Through Your Organization’s Internal Social Media? n=43. Answer Response % Collaboration among teams 36 84% Employee discussions 35 81% Share corporate news 33 77% Knowledge sharing between employees 31 72% Resources to help employees learn and do their jobs better 28 65% Disseminate corporate strategy 26 60% Polls 23 53% Discuss corporate news 19 44% Change initiatives 18 42% Ways for employees to ask questions of executives 18 42% Social topics / personal interests / hobbies / sports 17 40% Discuss corporate strategy 16 37% Photo Sharing 16 37% Community relations / philanthropy 15 35% Video Sharing 14 33% On-line games 3 7% Other 4 9%

What Percentage of Employees Participate in Internal Social Media by Generating /Sharing a Document? More observers than active participants normal. n=45. Answer Response % 0 - 5% 9 20% 6 - 10% 12 27% 11 - 25% 5 11% 26 - 50% 8 18% 51 - 75% 5 11% 76 - 100% 6 13% Total 45 100%

What Inspires Your Participation on Your Organization's Internal Social Site
Necessity: need to get things done
Desire to share knowledge and insights
Make contacts with those with similar interests
Communicate with those not in same office
Connect with people around the world
Break down silos
Share my expertise, learn from others
Get feedback
Learn the latest news (by lurking)
More efficient to work online
n=37.

What Inspires Your Participation on Your Organization's Internal Social Site
Example of comment:
We recognize that in today's world employee engagement in the communications process is both inevitable and beneficial to the growth of a strong and productive corporate culture. On one level, knowledge sharing across vast distances between operational business units has promoted best practices and resulted in the production of a dynamic wiki site that will benefit the company far into the future. On another level, day-to-day involvement in online digital communications through video contributions, discussion, commenting and rating has elevated the voice of employees and is slowly transforming the culture of the company to one of increased business literacy and personal empowerment .
n=37.

What are Some Ways Your Organization Attracts Employees to its Internal Social Site?
Nothing
Ongoing encouragement/ communications
Word of Mouth
Training
Contests, give aways, etc.
Publicizing pilots
Influential employees as advocates
Cross promote through other communications
Print newsletters, flyers
Electronic communications: email, intranet
Executive communications
Focus groups
Embedding with other content
Leadership example
Work processes including social media
n=34.

Most Think Social Media Fosters Collaboration Question: How effective do you believe social media to be as a tool for fostering more collaboration … Answer Response % Very Effective 18 40% Somewhat Effective 24 53% Somewhat Ineffective 3 7% Very Ineffective 0 0% Total 45 100%

Significant Differences Between “Public” and Internal Use of Social Media Anonymity not common on internal social sites n=46. Answer Response % Yes 8 17% No 38 83% Total 46 100%

How Your Organization Enables Communication Between the Following Upward communication not as strongly supported type of communication. Question Strongly Enables Somewhat Enables Does Not Enable Responses Executives/Leaders to employees 28 17 2 47 Employees to Leaders/Executives 17 26 5 48 Employees with other Employees 28 17 2 47

Public Challenging Status Quo

A short video clip

What Inhibits Your Participation on Your Organization's Internal Social Site ?
Time constraints
Difficult to use:
The technology we use is clunky and not user friendly. The effort to value ratio is not good.
Lack of clear process
Lack of integration with other systems
Lack of leadership interest and buy-in
Fear of too much exposure: Sometimes I think that sharing a point of view in a very public place is hard, because your content or thoughts are exhibit to all, and able a public judgment of your ideas.
n=36.

What Were the Biggest Unexpected Challenges in Implementing Social Media?
Employees
Lack of interest, understanding, regular use
Bottom up approach not enough
Corporate Leadership
Lack of support, resistance
Insufficient investment to realize potential
Technology
Lack of maturity and completeness of solution
Over promise (ex. Data mining)
Underestimated management needed
Strategic value not realized
Governance and business ownership needed
n=31.

Respondents Think Internal Social Media Improves Productivity and Profitability Do you believe that social media is helping your organization be more profitable? Do you believe that social media is helping your organization and its employees be more productive ? Answer Response % Yes 37 86% No 6 14% Total 43 100% Answer Response % Yes 31 70% No 13 30% Total 44 100%

In What Way(s) Has Social Media Hindered Your Organization’s Profitability?
Adverse effect on productivity
Because spent so much money on paying Moxie to customize their Spaces platform for us.
People are spending more time on YAMMER than working.
No support / participation from management and staff.
No change management / HR strategy resulting no motivation, people prefer to participate to external Social Networks (ex. Linkedin)
The need to be manning public social media sites and recovering the seepage from traditional media as a marketing presence
Lack of uniform and universal use
No effect on productivity or non- profit (5 responses)
n=17 including other.

What Was the Biggest Unexpected Benefit from Implementing Social Media?
Unleashed creativity: How creative people are...and the wonderful facts/insights that people from all over the world share! It's fun:)
The positive impact to the employment brand: The trust that is engendered just by offering a forum for open dialogue across the enterprise. The ability of the community to self-police and the unimagined uses that teams of people will find for these tools.
Greater connectivity and engagement across the world. Analysis of participation shows that we are reaching employees in every region including Asia, Europe, Russia, Alaska, Australia and Canada, our primary areas of business.
Connection with senior leaders: We found that when senior leaders began to microblog content of real substance, participation rates took off.
Lower level staff and their embrace of the technology despite their supervisors ‘lack of encouragement’.
Speed of adoption: Adoption rate of a new social networking platform introduced Feb. 14, 2011. Within 60 days, we had more than half (6,000+) employees opt in. More than 700 groups have formed organically. This astounded our Internal Communication team.
n=32.

How Has Social Media Helped Organization Be More Profitable?
Save time/ quicker response
Collaboration
Productivity
Miscellaneous
External impact
Typical comment
“ Quicker responses to new products and services leading to improvements. More contributions to innovation and improvements of processes and workflows. A more engaged and loyal workforce. More awareness of what other parts of the business are doing. Mentoring and social learning. “
NOTE: No quantitative examples of profitability were shared
n=22.

How Has Social Media Increased Productivity in Your Organization?
Increased knowledge sharing
Increased employee engagement and commitment – including younger employees
Real Time Collaboration
Example of response:
“ Questions are answered in real-time and resources surface organically, saving time hunting down answers (this is particularly helpful for those who work in remote locations); feedback on documents/projects allows employees to make changes before going live; creating better working relationships between employees and executive leadership, which breaks down barriers to carry out company strategy; employees build greater working relationships and networks, providing them a larger circle of knowledge when expertise is needed; employees feel more connected as a working community, strengthening the bonds they feel to the company and reducing attrition.”
NOTE: No quantitative examples of productivity were shared
n=19.

Findings Consistent with Other Research

How Can Your Organization Improve its Use of Social Tools and Technologies Internally?
Increase employee awareness & understanding
Ongoing communications
Link capabilities to work priorities
Provide training on social media
Introduce simple to use processes
Leadership example
Model use of social media
Social media architecture
Better integration of platforms
Simpler user interfaces
n=35.

Insights for Those Considering or Engaged in Social Media Behind the Firewall
This is still a relatively “new” media and style of communication behind the firewall
Organizations are still exploring how to make it successful and how to measure and describe it’s value and success
Changing habits and learning new technology essential to sustained use of social media
Training and support required for employees/ users
Change management needed to support launches and sustain momentum
Overcome “bleeding edge” painful experiences of employees
Increase in consulting practices to support implementation of social media
n=17 including other.

Questions??

Thank You!!

New Communications Behind the Firewall

by Society for New Communications Research (SNCR)

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