Tips On Using Social Media to Improve Employee Engagement

19Mar10

Martha Finney wrote a fantastic Smart Blog post on how to properly use social media to enhance engagement in the workplace. Here’s a summary of her key tips on using social media in the workplace:

Know exactly what kind of culture you want to create inside your company.
Draw up a terms-of-use policy.
Don’t punish your people for speaking their minds.
Limit the layers between the CEO and the “publish” button.
Keep your promises.
Don’t spy.

Two of these tips really stand out to me.

Don’t punish your people for speaking their minds. This is an issue in corporations, as punishing people for speaking their minds is a fast way to thwart innovation and productivity. Encourage your employees to communicate openly – this will help solve problems more efficiently. Employees will not hold on to frustrations if they are allowed to communicate their concerns.

Don’t spy. If you act like big brother, you will only exacerbate the problem. Monitor your brand online, but beware of punishing people for any little comment they make about their workday. You will probably make things worse if you take on the spying role. Employees are simply moving after hours conversations to the web, and this is actually going to happen more and more. The key is to engage with them and have a two-way dialogue.

Social tools can improve corporate culture, and will make employees more productive. Use Martha’s tips to allow these tools to open the lines of communication at work and improve employee engagement.