Social media essential for HR pros | Social media provides essential tools for contemporary human resource professionals
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Linking: Sarah Olson, director of recruitment at Berry, Dunn, McNeil & Parker, visits LinkedIn daily
Barbara Gabri doesn’t go a day without signing in to LinkedIn. Gabri is human resources director at Motivational Services Inc. in Augusta, which offer services for adults with mental illness. She visits the social networking site for about 10 minutes a day to see what her HR colleagues are up to, to answer posted questions about writing an affirmative action policy or negotiating benefits changes, and to post a question or two of her own. She goes on Twitter, another social networking site, a couple of times a week to read news and updates posted by her colleagues. And she even follows a blog, but just for fun — a Red Sox Nation blog.
For Gabri, using LinkedIn and these social media is about more than just catching up with colleagues or killing time on a coffee break. It’s an easy way to solve problems by soliciting thousands of knowledgeable HR professionals, and a way to share her expertise in conflict resolution and management training. Gabri says using LinkedIn gives her a competitive edge. “If I wanted to serve on the [The Society for Human Resource Management] Maine State Council, I’d have a better chance than if they hadn’t heard from me in six months,” she says. “It shows I’m aggressive, I’m keeping current, and it builds awareness that I’m a reputable professional.”
Call it professional development 2.0.
Social media has become a cheap and hip way to market a company’s products, reach out to new customers and build brand recognition, and the benefits of using these Web 2.0 tools for advertising and marketing have been well documented. But as the popularity of social media grows — the number of people using LinkedIn, for example, has grown in the past year from 1 million a month to 1 million every two weeks, according to USA Today — the advantages to building connections on LinkedIn, friending on Facebook and following people on Twitter are multiplying as well.
Recruiters have started using social media tools to vet job candidates. A September 2008 survey by CareerBuilder.com found that 22% of hiring managers use social networking sites to research job candidates, double the number in 2006. But the vast world of online tools can be useful to human resources professionals in other, more diverse ways as well, from seeking out more efficient payroll methods to staying informed about industry trends.
Though social media could be a vital development tool for any HR professional, there aren’t enough of them taking advantage of the opportunity, according to industry experts. Kris Dunn is vice president of human resources at SourceMedical, a software company in Birmingham, Ala., and he blogs about human resources. Dunn offers training seminars in various states to HR professionals looking to expand their social media knowledge. In these seminars, out of a room of 50 professionals, only a handful have read a blog or used LinkedIn to research a candidate, he says. “The bottom line is, a lot of HR people are on LinkedIn, but they aren’t active on it.”
In Maine, HR professionals are just starting to warm up to this new technology. David Pease, senior vice president of human resources at Androscoggin Bank in Lewiston, was recently elected director of the SHRM Maine State council, and has been pushing social media to the state’s HR professionals as a way to keep people connected. He created a discussion group on LinkedIn called Maine HR Council, and he has noticed an uptick in the number of people he sees linking up with him online; so far the group has attracted 68 people in less than two months. He also started a blog called MaineHR, and made his first and only post on Dec. 6. So far, no one has made any comments on it. “[Using social media is] beginning to become more prevalent,” he says. “But it’s slow going.”
Some HR departments are using social networking sites for recruiting, but not to stay connected with their colleagues or seek out expertise in their field. Laurie Brooks, an L.L.Bean spokesperson, says her HR department uses LinkedIn to review potential employees, but it’s not something they’re “actively doing on a daily basis.” L.L.Bean has a presence on a number of social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, but these profiles are managed as marketing tools, not human resources tools.
So why aren’t all HR professionals embracing social media? Pease attributes the hesitancy to their unfamiliarity. “I think a lot of HR folks are skilled at how to deal with people face-to-face,” he says. “We’re experts at dealing with people dynamics. But technology changes so much.”
For some HR professionals, the problem is the time crunch. Sarah Olson, director of recruitment at Portland-based accounting firm Berry, Dunn, McNeil & Parker, visits LinkedIn on a daily basis, using it to glean information from other HR professionals around the country, like what recruitment database software other HR people have found most useful. “There’s nothing like getting firsthand information,” she says. She also uses it to track down people with the skills the firm is looking for to fill a certain position, those people who may not be actively looking for a job but who might jump at the right opportunity.
But she hasn’t branched out beyond LinkedIn for the fear of virtual overcommitment. “If you get involved with too many, it’d be all you did, all day long,” she says. Olson also worries about making too much company information available online, and bothering colleagues or potential employees by posting messages in a public space. “I want to respect people’s privacy, and reach out privately to them, if I can.”
Despite the challenges of delving into social media, Pease says it’s important for HR professionals to give it a try. “It’s a crucial thing to become much more skilled at using,” he says. “It’s where our future applicants will be coming from, and it’s what our customers and employees are already doing.” It could give HR executives a professional edge. “There are things out there that our employers aren’t aware of. We need to get ahead of the curve so we can advise them,” Pease says.
Dunn says every HR professional should be reading blogs on the HR industry and whatever industry their company is in (Dunn himself subscribes to 200 blogs). By not engaging with social media, HR professionals not only risk losing out on recruiting the most talented, tech-savvy candidates, but sending the message that they aren’t invested in advancing their career — and the goals of the company. “If you’re not involved in some way, you’re going to look like a total dinosaur, and that won’t be a positive for your career,” he says. “You’ll lose out on promotion opportunities, and you’ll be negatively impacted from an influence standpoint.”
Getting more HR professionals involved with social media means teaching them how to use them and how to make the most of the time they spend on them. “It’s about helping people see the value in it,” says Pease. “Like any tool, just to be on it doesn’t mean it’s beneficial.”
Mindy Favreau, Mainebiz staff reporter, can be reached at mfavreau@mainebiz.biz.
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