Employee social networking (case study)

We humans
are social creatures. With rare exception, we strive to relate, converse and
connect with others. Social networking promotes online communities of interests
and activities that promote connections between users in a more open and robust
manner than simple e-mail.

While
best represented by the quintessential MySpace and Facebook, social networking
has made significant strides into the corporate intranet where employee
networking is becoming a valuable asset to leading organizations that covet the
new breed of employee. This young, web savvy employee cohort desires

13 thoughts on “Employee social networking (case study)”

  1. Toby, one nagging question that I've never seen addressed much anywhere regarding 2.0 internally is what employees are looking to do better in their jobs by utilizing these tools?
    I know what a user personally gets out of Web 2.0.
    What does an employee professionally get out of Intranet 2.0 that, frankly, also delivers business value?
    That's not to say the benefits don't exist, but I haven't heard/read them expressed to any great extent.
    At some companies, such tools theoretically could quickly become a distraction (putting the socializing into social media) that hurts productivity instead of helping it.
    Worse, it could become one of those things where individuals and departments see it as a channel for bragging about their importance, thus prompting efforts to one-up others instead of just doing their jobs more efficiently.
    Any evaluation you can provide on that?

  2. I would also like to hear what benefits this provides. I'm not saying that there aren't any, I just want to know what they are. Any information on this would be very interesting. The negatives are apparent (decrease productivity), but I would also rather that employees are being social within the company during work and not on Facebook or another external site. Thanks!

  3. Well look at the case study on BT yesterday. The case is there but its based on need, not ROI. In my office, I need my staff and encourage them to use Facebook. networking is an important part of the job. Secondly, employees should be compensated and judged based on results, not the clock. Finally, younger generation employees demand social media… deny them it and they will work elsewhere. There's your case. Notwithstanding that, Sabre has proven there is ROI as well.

  4. I know that my business became more effecient when we opened a private forum for the employees to share ideas, information and work task.
    It brought our people together and they began to work more as a unit without any suggestive pushing from the upper level management.
    We also put threads so that they could suggest to myself and other management things they thought needed to be addressed.
    People will work as a team if allowed to do so, and company loyalty is a lot better when everyone has a voice without frear of loss or ridicule.

  5. I'm not sure that a lot of employers would agree on this totally. I can see where this is going to be a problem with too much socializing via email while employees are suppose to be working. Maybe I'm wrong.
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  6. Call me old school, but I appreciate an email from someone rather than receiving a comment from them via my Myspace or Facebook page. Feels more genuine knowing that they took the time to dig through their email address book to write me a message

  7. I would be curious how this directly and indirectly effects productivity. During some business classes in college (way before web 2.0 stuff) they often mentioned stuff about making employees happier at the work place and how you can (sometimes) get better productivity and reliability out them. Would a “Company” web.20 social site help create a better company (internally and possibly image – think of how well starbucks treat employees and how it shows) or help to slow productivity as everyone blogs all day and post videos of their kids? Also, does the size of the company make a difference. If it is a small web company like all Sarongs or a giant like ,a href=”http://www.att.com”>AT&T (which is a leader in communication and you might think they already have this too) does it make a difference. It would be an interesting project to do for a master thesis.

  8. Good points and questions. Though I'm tired of the productivity argument… do they fulfill their work objectives or not? Are they getting their job done? If so, then who cares if they're spending their time “networking”… by doing so their creating relationships and cementing their own place in the company (which is a good thing if they're in fact doing their job). By getting to know other people in the company, they're getting to know their company better… who would argue that this is a bad thing?
    Additionally, internal social networking is much different than external… for example, the Q&A feature of SabreTown is a killer business application that has already realized more than a half-million dollars in direct savings for Sabre. So, its a good thing, and its delivered massive ROI (it was implemented very inexpensively).
    Regards,
    Toby Ward

  9. I would also like to hear what benefits this provides. I'm not saying that there aren't any, I just want to know what they are. Any information on this would be very interesting. The negatives are apparent (decrease productivity), but I would also rather that employees are being social within the company during work and not on Facebook or another external site. Thanks!
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  10. I know what a user personally gets out of Web 2.0.What does an employee professionally get out of Intranet 2.0 that, frankly, also delivers business value?That's not to say the benefits don't exist, but I haven't heard/read them expressed to any great extent.
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  11. Don't let your ego get in the way of good communication. Who cares who took more effort to contact you. The fact is, the more effort it takes, the fewer will bother.

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