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The big buzzword in the workplace today is social networking. Of course, it is one of those stages in the evolution of the Net. Just as today’s Internet-savvy barely remember the chatrooms that were once considered the biggest thing to happen in cyberspace, social media will end up as just another phase. A lot of people will have made big money by then, of course, which is why so many vested interests are working to give it publicity these days.
But while social media remain all the rage, it is having a considerable impact on the workplace. People are using it to find jobs and employers are using it to screen potential employees. There is a growing realisation that there are lurking dangers.
Analysts say that time spent on social media is overtaking that devoted to email. It was inevitable. Email falls into two buckets — professional and personal. The professional email is a little more formal. The messages are longer and the whole exercise is data intensive. That will continue as the domain of email. The personal emails — “Hey, let’s meet tomorrow” — is being captured by SMS, instant messaging sites such as Facebook, and even Twitter. Because of this and other reasons, social media has moved to centre stage.
Does social media help people find jobs? It certainly does, though much more so in the West rather than in India. Today employees are actively encouraged to get their friends and relatives working in the same company. The HR guys explain that it makes for one happy family. The real truth is that people are reluctant to kick over the traces — leave in a huff, for instance — when they know it might impact their relatives working in the same organisation.
But social networking does not come with unalloyed advantages for jobseekers. Kelly Services, a leader in providing workforce solutions, has just come out with its Global Workforce Index Report. “Social networking redefines the landscape for jobseekers around the world,” says the report. The headline finding is that “more than a quarter of the people surveyed from around the world are going online in their hunt for work, but many are growing nervous about the potential career fallout from personal content on social networking sites.”
Modern day Emily Posts are concerning themselves with inane questions such as: “What do you do when your boss wants to be your friend on Facebook?” That sounds very naughty but may actually be a way of keeping you attentive online for 24 hours instead of the regular eight working hours.
A bigger worry than being dragged into office romances is what you have put up on your personal profile. Netizens are belatedly realising that their rants of younger days may have been officially erased, but they are still there somewhere on the Net. Neither you nor your employer may be able to access it easily. But who is to stop some of the also-ran networking sites from providing this as an employee check, the way individual credit rating agencies work? On the face of it, it’s a perfectly viable revenue model. Jobseekers (the majority of them being young) had earlier assumed that while they could do research on the company, it wouldn’t work the other way around. Silver citizens in HR departments probably didn’t know the difference between Facebook and a face job. Today, the young have invaded HR departments too. The data mining you can do in an amateurish way, they can do much better with professional training.
People are realising this. The Kelly survey says more than a quarter of respondents (26 per cent) are worried that material from their social networking page could adversely impact their careers. At the same time, 28 per cent believe it is essential to be active on social media in order to advance their careers. Almost a third (30 per cent) say that their employers have a social media or social networking policy that regulates use at work.
Social networking is good for you. But you must know how to use it well. If you must post pictures of your last party, make sure it’s not your boss’s wife under the mistletoe.
The pros and the cons
Benefits to the company
• Connect and communicate with colleagues, mentors, applicants, and customers
• Promote values, goals, and market interests
• Engage employees
• Increase computer skills and communication skills
Costs to the company
• Wasted time; up to two hours a day
• Disclosure of secrets
• Damage to reputation
• Venue for disgruntled employees
• Venue for union organising
