The concept of social media as a threat to professionalism is slowly becoming outdated. More organizations are adopting online social tools to foster camaraderie among coworkers, adding to a company’s productivity.
Experts posit that engagement between coworkers reduces employee turnover and increases loyalty and mutual emotional support at work.
Carlos Gracia, founder of Nobox, a social media marketing firm, allows his employees to bring their pets into the office and share pictures on Instagram and Twitter. He believes that social media has almost replaced off-site, team-building events aimed at employee engagement. Results of an online poll also back the trend. The poll shows that social technology eases employee communication and collaboration, leading to increased productivity.
Bonding with coworkers over social media has professional benefits. From marshillonline.
How internal social media can engage employees
Internal social media, or enterprise social media, is deployed by companies to engage their employees and blur the communication gap. In a study, 58 percent of employees said that they want to work in a company that uses internal social media sites.
Paul Leonardi, a communication professor at Northwestern University tested the effectiveness of social networking tools in helping employees get to know each other and bringing down inefficiencies at work. Employees of a company were divided into two groups, one of which was given a software to communicate. Six months later, those who had used the enterprise’s social networking site had improved their ability to find information by 31 percent and the ability to find people who knew the relevant person by 71 percent.
Humana.com, a health care company, had two purposes in mind while implementing an internal social media platform for its employees. It wanted to achieve its business goals and create positive personal relationships among workers. Today 26,000 of the firm’s 40,000 employees are active on the company’s social network with 200 signing up every week.
Connecting with virtual teams through social media
Virtual teams grow in number as we rapidly take steps towards becoming global citizens. Keeping in touch with coworkers living overseas is eased by social media, which provides a common platform to share views and create a mutually-conducive working environment.
Virtual teams are using various technologies to stay connected. VSee and Sqwiggle are examples of technologies that enable employees scattered across various countries to video conference and work together.
Social media and its impact on the workplace productivity
According to a survey conducted by Microsoft, 50 percent of employees believe that social media at work helps increase their productivity. However, more than one-third of the respondents feel that their company underestimates the advantages of using social tools at work.
Another study by McKinsey Global Institute states that proper implementation of social technology in offices has the potential to enhance productivity by 20 to 25 percent.