3 Ways to Ignite a Social Workplace

As human beings we will always be connecting, will always look for social workplace solutions and with today’s technology we are moving closer to igniting a social workplace.

I am the closing keynote speaker for the Impact99 HR Summit 2012 in Vancouver BC it is a full day that focuses on creating a social workplace and maximizing technology and people to increase business results.

What does it mean to ignite a social workplace? It means looking at the changing reality of how we connect, communicate and get work done. It means raising our digital IQ’s so that we can work together more collaboratively and strategically and it means aligning the technological tools with the goals for the company.

Whether you are a small business, a large corporation or a non profit the reality is that social media technology is impacting the way we do business. Where there were once barriers in place about privacy and firewalls progressive organizations are recognizing the need to include social media into their marketing, customer service and day to day operations.

Just yesterday I had a new Twitter follower who works for a major multinational and under her Twitter name it said, “these are my opinions only not my employers”. I thought that was a creative way of protecting her right to Tweet.

Christine McLeod and Pam Ross have put together this one day program where HR professionals gather to work experiential on social media in real life and with practical applications.. Provocative questions such as:

“Why have a social workplace?”

“What are the proven benefits?”

“How do we leverage our social media that we have in place? “

Pam and Christine list a number of ways to ignite a social workplace but here are the top 3 that stand out for me:

#1 – The most important piece is to communicate and guide the buy- in to social media in the workplace. We need to calm the concerns, provide the rationale and the benefits of becoming more of a social workplace.

#2- Find out the digital IQ impact for everyone. Where are people at in terms of social media knowledge, use and effectiveness? How can we leverage the social media knowledge of the influencers to help the adapters? What are the barriers to increasing social in the workplace?

#3- Once we create buy- in and measure digital IQ we need to look at leveraging technology to increase efficiency, customer satisfaction, marketing, employee engagement and employee retention. A social workplace impacts every aspect of the business and it means different things to different people. A Zoomer (a baby boomer who refuses to age) may see the benefit of a social workplace when they  see how collaborative technology allows them to get team input more easily and to delegate with greater ease. A Generation X may see the value of being able to tweet office updates to a colleague and a Gen Y may be sparked to new creative breakthroughs for the business with when they understand the business gaps that social media and technology can fill.

We are social beings, we are human, we are born to connect- a social workplace is an advanced civilization in many ways. We have the tools to create, communicate and collaborate in new and dynamic ways. It is an exciting time to be a leader and to be using technology to ignite a social workplace.