Social media Archives - Fully Effective Employees

Employee Engagement and Retention

I attended an HR Roundtable sponsored by Resourcefulhr in Seattle today. A group of HR professionals met to discuss challenges and ideas for enagaging and retaining employees.

The major topics that we discussed included:

Finding certain specialized talent in the high tech fields where the larger companies are able to entice employees with large salaries, benefits and the prestige of the big name corporations.
Retaining employees in companies where the hourly salary is very low due to economic constraints.
Engaging employees and keeping them loyal and happy.
Dealing with generational differences including things like social media, work ethic, expectations and more.
Work life balance.

Research has shown that unless the salary is very low, financial incentives are not always the way to reach the hearts and minds of employees. Appreciation, acknowledgement, and recognition will go a long way towards keeping employees motivated to perform. A sense of belonging to the community in which they work, feeling valued and supported by their employer are important to keep employees loyal to. Low- cost benefits like health club membership discounts, wellness and worklife programs and employee assistance programs can be implemented for a great return on investment.

The members of the roundta ble discussion offered some great ideas that worked for their workplaces. Some of these included:

Hosting a community garden which provided a place for employees to plant, tend, weed and water flowers and vegetables and then reap the rewards of the garden by picking flowers for the workplace or making a salad with the fresh picked vegetables.
A monthly theme such as wellness or “stress less”, where speakers, massage therapists and other professionals were brought in to assist with the theme and provide benefits for employees.
A “Rock Star” program where decorated rocks with positive sayings would be passed to deserving employees who were nominated for certain acts of kindness, good performance or when they were going through a tough time.
A book club meeting weekly to read and discuss books relevant to the workplace or personal interests.
Webinar trainings or onsite trainings on new technologies such as Linked in, Facebook and Twitter, for the older generations to help bridge the generational gap.
Social media policies to clarify the use and time spent on social media in the workplace.
Nominating employees for exceeding performance, helping others, etc and then entering the nomination into a monthly drawing for a prize.
Host meetings to listen and hear employee concerns and to solicit ideas for improvement, change, etc.

All of these are fabulous ideas for keeping employees engaged. We all know the cost of recruitng and retraining new employees, so we need to be sure we keep our current employees happy.

Do you have any other ideas to contribute to this list? We would love to hear from you!

Does Your Company Have a Social Media Policy?

Social media has been a topic of growing concern for employers. We have had managers calling us because their employees are using company time and equipment to update their Facebook accounts, to check email, and to tweet at their workstations repeatedly throughout the day. More and more, employees feel the need to constantly update their “friends” and to be in touch all day.

Social Media has exploded and will continue to be in the forefront of most of our lives. There are more than 500 million active users of Facebook and with more than 50 million active users logging in everyday. Other popular social networking sites include Linkedin, Youtube, Twitter and more are being developed every day.

I attended a recent seminar presented by the employment attorneys at Foster Pepper, a large Seattle law firm. Here is a summary of what I learned:
Most employers are now using social media for advertising, public relations, customer relations, market research, to investigate vendors and service providers, and to investigate candidates for employment. While all of these uses are important and valid, there are risks that employers should be aware of when it comes to employer-sponsored social media. Employers have to deal with a lack of control, employee misconduct, violation of confidentiality, exposure to securities laws and more. Employers must draft a clear policy, designate eligible staff to engage in the company sponsored media, discipline employees for unapproved or improper use and be sure to review and revise posts. Employees must be aware that when engaging in company sponsored social media, they have no privacy rights.
Off duty social media can be very problematic. When does an employee cross the line by talking about their employer on their own Facebook site? Are they disclosing confidential information? Complaining publicly about their boss or co-workers? Disparaging their employer? Is one of your employees cyber stalking a co-working or harassing someone? As an employer, you might want to consider updating your harassment policy to reflect social media issues beause an employer has a legal obligation to investigate if he should have known about harassment issues. The employer could be directly liable and vicariously liable.
People forget or don’t realize that social media is viral, what is said to one person can reach millions. When work issues are posted or tweeted, it goes way beyond office gossip or water cooler talk. Once it is posted, it is very hard to remove. If an employee’s friend posts pictures of her on a beach in Mexico when she was supposed to be on Family Medical Leave or short term disability, all kinds of employment issues may arise.
All employers should have a social media policy which addresses the following issues:
* Address business use
* Warn that social media is not private
* Suggest care and discretion
* Require compliance with the law and rights of others
* Protect confidential information
* Prohibit false information
* Warn employees that misuse of social media may result in discipline
* Address business use
* Warn that employer controls access and content
* Address personal use and limit to off duty time and own equipment

* Restrict employees to using personal email accounts for personal business
* Prohibit negative conduct that might damage an employer’s reputation, business or mission

In addition to having the policy, it needs to be implemented properly. Train all staff, supervisors and HR staff, distribute to all employees with a signed acknowledgement, enforce the policy in a uniform manner and update the policy with advances in social media.

For a sample social media policy, courtesy of Foster, Pepper, PLLC., please email me at audreyr@fee-eap.com