Social Media in Learning and Talent Development

Managers as Talent Managers

Text originally appeared in Schwuchow, K./Gutmann, J. (ed.): Personalentwicklung 2013 -
Themen, Trends, Best Practices, Freiburg, Haufe-Lexware 2012

Social Media in Learning and Talent Development
Thomas Jenewein, SAP Education, SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany

Social media are increasingly becoming part of everyday working life. Initial experience
has underlined the importance of integrating social media into IT infrastructures and
business processes to ensure they become an integral part of the working day. If used
properly, social media can help companies run more effectively, including in the area of
learning & talent development (L&D) and associated areas such as knowledge
management and change management. If done right social media can help to optimize
knowledge work tremendously. L&D managers can assume key driving roles here: by
using social media in typical personnel development processes, as experts in facilitation,
instructional design, or change management, and in their roles as educational experts.

Introduction

Social media employ web- and mobile-based technologies to support interactive dialogue
and “introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between
organizations, communities, and individuals.” (Wikipedia, 2012). They involve information,
communication, collaboration, knowledge management, multimedia, and entertainment.
As new technologies continue to emerge, the area is constantly developing – be it the use
of location recognition/GPS, “Big Data”, and of new devices such as tablets, or the
introduction of new combinations, such as new business models.

Since the triumph of the smartphone, there is no longer any question about sustainability
of social media in the future. “Generation Y” will promote the use of social media in the
workplace – and social media will have to be used to recruit and retain particularly
talented employees in the face of the increasing shortage of qualified personnel.

These technical innovations will also support more effective learning, knowledge transfer,
and talent management. L&D managers need to consider:

How they can best use these new media in their areas
How this can change their role as personnel development manager

Integrating social media into existing processes has proven to be more effective than
simply making the technology available to employees.


Potential Uses of Social Media

Using social media changes general communication values. New values include freedom
from hierarchy (anyone can contact anyone else) and transparency (all information is
accessible within one's own network at least). Career values have also changed.
Motivation at work stems more and more from quality of work, lifestyle, development
opportunities, and employer branding. The values associated with social media, and the
new career values in which social media also represent a lifestyle tool, must be taken into
account when social media are used.

Social media such as Facebook fan pages and LinkedIn have been used as job search
engines in the area of recruiting for quite some time. How social media can be used in
learning and talent development is now also being considered. Let us now look at some
possible scenarios.

On-Demand Learning and Knowledge Management

Content and experience in wikis, for example, can help optimize knowledge management
and accelerate informal learning. Implicit knowledge is made explicit thanks to comments,
ratings, user contributions, and discussions – and the highly valued user-generated
content that emerges becomes organizational knowledge. Some applications provide
features for adding and sharing videos or screenshots directly from social media
platforms. This further transforms users into content and media producers. What results
is a searchable knowledge base that could never be created with the same scope, up-to-
date information, speed, cost-effectiveness, and quality by central departments.

Learning and obtaining information quickly as part of the job, for example, to solve a
specific problem, are integral daily tasks in knowledge-intensive jobs. Not everything can
be learned in advance nowadays. Wikipedia is a particularly useful and popular problem-
solving tool used by many. Such scenarios can also be implemented internally within
companies – thereby ensuring data privacy and legal protection. This allows employees to
use social networks to find experts who can help them further, for example. Or they can
find solutions in user-generated content, such as that available in discussion forums or
company wikis.

Social media should ideally be integrated directly into work processes. Forums or wiki
pages could be incorporated into product documentation, for example, enabling users to
help themselves with support from facilitating experts. Another example would be a
forum for every sales order created in which questions or documents could be exchanged
as part of customer support. If on-demand learning is made an integral part of the
working environment and existing processes, it is no longer learning – but part of the job.

An example from personnel development would be social media features integrated into
the learning infrastructure, such as course ratings and comments. This allows learners to


obtain valuable information when selecting courses and share their views with other
learners based on the comments. Ideally, learners would be able to search for formal
content (such as training courses and e-learnings) and use the same search function to
find user-generated content (informal content such as wiki contributions and videos).

Communities of Practice (CoP)

Communities of practice (CoP) is an established method that has been boosted through
the use of social media. According to Wenger (1998), these are communities of experts
that are interconnected informally and that face similar tasks. Social media platforms can
provide the “adhesive glue” within these communities. If an established expert group has
reached a certain size and is adequately distributed, the CoP can also function
independently via social media without considerable integration effort, assuming it is
facilitated and managed appropriately. Its success hinges on the commitment and
management of the group, however.

In the area of personnel development, a community for talents or high potentials could
be a useful application – although integration into a process, namely the talent
management process, would also be beneficial in this case. SAP AG, for example, has set
up a talent community for its global talents through which all communication is made –
from providing information about new development activities and programs, to
subsequent questions and comments from talents. The community is facilitated by the
talent program managers.

Another potential use is in the onboarding of new employees: New employees can share
their initial experiences and network with others. In addition, formal content such as
checklists help to shorten time to full productivity.

Another example – open innovation – is evident in the U.S. company UST Global. This IT
consulting firm uses a social media tool for asynchronous colloquia for idea generation
(jam sessions), in which new products are discussed. The company also sets up
communities for each customer project, thereby optimizing internal communication for
project business.

Blended Learning 2.0

Social media provide tools that are easy to use and can be integrated into existing
learning settings, allowing blended learning to be combined with social learning and
taken to the next level. Social learning can be defined as learning from and with others
using social media. It can take the form of independent learning, on-demand learning, or
informal and collaborative learning. It can involve:

Supporting discussions
Submitting questions and answers


Working through exercises
Sharing documents before, during, or after courses

Again, it is important in this case for integration to take place at a methodological and
design level. If forums are merely set up for a course, there is no guarantee they will
actually be used.

An SAP example of such an application is the Strategy to Action program in which
participants use a social media platform to discuss homework between seminars, access
course material, and share their experiences. Integrating the social media platform in the
instructional design was a key move. Specifically why and how the platform is to be used
was explained during the course, for example.

Yet another example is a training program set up by a midsize German bank, in which
working and learning tasks for trainees proved to be particularly successful in the sales
community (Hassebrook, Maurer, 2011). As part of the trainee program, working and
learning tasks were announced on the social network, where documents were made
available and subsequently processed by learning groups. Trainees were notified about
project changes or updates automatically, could set up personal profiles, see which
participants were active at any given time, and create their own groups or activities. Such
was the success and enthusiasm of the participants for this new form of learning that
management decided to make these learning communities the basis for trainee programs
across the entire bank group.

Communication & Information

Communication can be made more effective through the use of social media. Social
media conveniently replace newsletters, central mail inboxes for specific areas or projects,
and help optimize communication including feedback and discussion options, for
example. This can serve not only to simplify tasks within personnel development (by
having blogs for each project), but also to improve the communication of information to
internal customers (by means of podcasts or a social networking group for personnel
development).


Team and Change Management

The key to successful change processes is to ensure that employees are informed
sufficiently, trained, and involved in shaping the change. Social media are valuable tools in
each of these three areas of action (Ploski, Ulrich, Ehmann, 2011). Furthermore, the
introduction of social media should be accompanied by a change process since the
transported values are not always in alignment with corporate values. In companies with
strict hierarchies in particular, social media must be used purposefully and managed
carefully to ensure employees feel encouraged to use them.

Social media offer an array of potential uses from which team development can also
benefit. The objective of the “SAP Marketing Film Festival” was to optimize
communication between departments, for example. Departments from the various
countries involved in SAP Marketing put together videos introducing themselves. They
uploaded their podcast videos to a social media platform, where the best video was then
determined using the rating function.

Performance Management

Social media can also be incorporated into the performance management process and
help define and monitor employee goals and further development depending on what is
used. In a simple scenario, communities could be set up specifically for this purpose,
allowing managers to learn on-demand during the performance management process
and get mentored by HR experts.

Using social media for actual performance management, however, is more revolutionary.
A product featuring typical social media functions was developed in a pilot project carried
out by SAP. It featured:

Employee profiles with options for status updates, feeds, notifications, requests, and so
on
An option to share goals – publicly or confidentially with the manager
A function to publish activities and tasks for each goal, which can be viewed by people
in the network over time
Evaluations of goals and activities – from managers and other persons

It will undoubtedly take some time before such a radical application sees acceptance for
binding areas such as performance management, even if the resonance from the US and
younger users is extremely positive.


Internal Talent Markets

Transparent employee profiles can make talent management more effective. This means
moving toward a more transparent internal talent market in which employees search
independently for career options (pull instead of push) and (more or less) present
themselves using public profiles. This shifts the primary focus to the individual, since
talents are becoming more and more scarce due to demographic changes (Trost, Frosch,
2011). Employees want to pursue attractive positions, which they determine according to
lifestyle, employer branding, or quality of work. In addition to employee transparency,
this also demands a high level of transparency for positions in the internal talent market.

If we consider the current practice, which has a strong focus on processes, target profiles
for key positions, the definition of successors, or evaluation of performance management
data, there is still some way to go. Needless to say, new approaches for internal talent
markets have to be integrated into the processes for filling positions and selecting
personnel.

Success Factors and Lessons Learned

In recent years, SAP has gained various insights into ensuring the successful
implementation of social media. This section presents these insights as success factors
and lessons learned.

Where infrastructure is concerned, it is key to strike a balance between a centralized and
decentralized approach. One common advantage of decentralized pilots is the bottom-up
implementation approach that is applied. Since the “social Web” relies on active user
participation, this approach is often more effective than a top-down implementation. A
further advantage of decentralized pilots is flexible, rapid success. In contrast, the
advantage of a centralized approach is the integrated infrastructure and the close alliance
with the IT department.

The long-term objective should always be to integrate new social media tools into the
standard IT landscape in a way that allows structured content on the corporate portal to
be found, in addition to podcasts, wiki pages, or forum posts. Central user management
systems can be used in parallel to facilitate simple, high-quality user management.

The technical foundations on which social media are used must be solid: Software
performance must be fast and tools must be easy to use. Fundamental issues, such as
data privacy and reporting, must first be addressed with the relevant committees and
approved by the works council (in countries where this is relevant).

As with all trends driven by technology, it is always important to focus on the value added
rather than getting caught up in the technology euphoria. It is crucial to always consider
the actual objectives of a measure to ensure the best methods and tools are ultimately
used. There are a number of proven nontechnical measures, such as providing coffee


corners, peer learning, coaching, and mentoring, that can also help promote informal
learning.

The trend for «social» technologies is shifting from individual tools to corporate social
media platforms that merge all relevant functions – from wikis and blogs to
groups/rooms and profiles, and even mobile apps. Mobile access via apps or browsers on
tablet PCs has become a must.

In some scenarios, such as communities of practice, these platforms can be used
independently. Social media can also be integrated into online help for systems – to help
users help themselves. It is generally beneficial to integrate social media into business
processes and systems used. This integration may automate certain activities (automatic
creation of collaboration groups, automatic assignment of participants when courses are
booked, and so on) and thereby improve operational efficiency. While free platforms are
a good option for pilots, they are not considered sustainable options in the medium term
since they are generally financed by advertising and the sale of user data.
As a solution provider, SAP offers its customers a range of predefined integration options,
both for existing customers who have already installed SAP products in their corporate
infrastructure, and customers who want to subscribe to software via the Internet (cloud
software). The SAP social media tools can be integrated into business processes based on
the approach deemed most suitable.

Usability Requirements

Even if the tools are essentially easy to use, it is important to ensure that users are able to
use them – by providing FAQ lists, short multimedia units, demos, instructions, or
overviews indicating how each tool is to be used for what, for example.

Social media guidelines can help make requirements for the use of social media
transparent (Vassilian 2009). These guidelines should reflect corporate culture and should
not be limited to general, socially desirable statements. Should barriers be identified (in
the manner in which knowledge is shared, for example), change management measures
to adapt the learning and knowledge culture must be initiated.

Special considerations must be made for older employees – since the younger generation
who are more familiar with the use of social media tools are just a subset of the
workforce. Examples, demonstrations, and specific situations can be used to ally fears. A
critical mass of users and a facilitator for the startup phase are required to ensure
sufficient activity. Typical user types and distribution of users are as follows:

70 percent lurkers: users who are logged on and view content, but do not actively
participate in the community
20 percent commenters: users who comment on or reply to existing articles, blogs,
questions, or similar


10 percent creators: highly active community users who submit articles or create blogs,
for example – to set up effective communities some creators need to be available and
motivated, ideally in the set-up phase.

Board blogs written by communication departments are rarely successful due to their
lack of authenticity. A more successful approach is to use multipliers such as trainees and
students as “teachers” and reverse mentors for Web 2.0 tools. Fears about potential tool
misuse (such as hidden performance management) should be addressed openly and
specifically discussed with committees such as the works council or data security officers.

Processes and Content

Social media tools such as communities are not “self running.” They have to be managed
and supported. This requires new roles to be defined or existing roles to be extended,
such as those of trainers or personnel development managers. Community facilitators,
online mentors, and wiki gardeners are the new roles to be filled. And working hours and
resources must be allocated accordingly.

Leveraging early existing available content, whether podcasts or discussions, plays an
important role in generating immediate benefit. This can be achieved using instructions at
the meta level or exceptional content, examples of which would be contributions from
known persons or valued experts within the company, or articles on relevant topics such
as strategic initiatives or new products.

It is crucial to align content with corporate priorities and to avoid limiting the focus only
to typical education fields such as languages or management training. However, content
that is sensitive or legally binding is less appropriate on social media. It is important to
define clearly which content is to be managed and is therefore safeguarded, validated,
reliable, binding, and up to date, and hence is not suitable as user-generated content.
Personnel development departments should strive for an instructional design integration
to ensure that social media are not an end to themselves, but an integral part of learning
arrangements.

When social media are introduced, it is important to define success criteria using key
figures such as (active) use, contributions, acceptance, and perceived benefit. At SAP, for
example, statistics are recorded on the number of podcasts created and used, wiki
entries and basic read access, top ratings and top discussions. This information is also
channeled back to communities to motivate contributors and draw attention to content
of particular interest.

Role of Learning and Talent Development and Management

L&D managers in particular can contribute significantly to social media implementations –
be this their competence in change processes, or their pedagogic competence. This helps


prevent social media implementations from becoming too technology oriented. In
addition to including social media in their service portfolio, L&D managers can use social
media to position themselves strategically as competent points of contact.

These examples underline the many ways in which social media can support personnel
development. And associations such as the ASTD (American Society of Training &
Development, 2011) highlight their growing relevance, declaring social learning a new
“area of expertise” in 2011. These competencies include:

The use of social learning technologies
Knowledge of various tools, their areas of application, and their limitations
Techniques in overcoming organizational hurdles during implementation

Management will also be faced with new requirements. In an environment in which it is
established practice to voice criticism and feedback, they can expect decisions to be
called into question more often and become more difficult to enforce. If hierarchies in a
company have strongly shaped its decision making to date, the interaction structures on
the social Web call for decision-making facilitation rather than decision making. This
demands more responsibility and commitment from employees and less governance
from managers.

Bibliography

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under http://www.astd.org/Communities-of-Practice/Career-
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