WHITEPAPER Improving Employee Productivity with Social Tools
Jam solution Improving Employee Productivity with Social Tools These days you ll notice an emerging trend tech-savvy millennials are becoming an ever greater percentage of the workforce. And, as millennials fill more cubicles and offices, America s corporate culture is changing rapidly. While these changes can create roadblocks for human resources professionals, they also present a unique opportunity to implement solutions that increase the productivity of everyone and the profitability of your company. Here s your roadmap to navigating and benefiting from the changing face of your global workforce Changing Demographics, Changing Workplace According to the U.S. Department of Labor, four generations are currently active in the workforce. Within a few years, a fifth generation, known as Generation 2020 (those born in 1997 or later), will emerge as well. For Millennials and Generation 2020, the Internet isn t a modern marvel it s a tool that has always existed. The way professionals use technology is changing rapidly as well. According to Aragon Research, 1990 to the present is the email era. However, starting in 2008, a shift toward the shared era began. The way people use technology is becoming much more customized and communal. Video, high-speed mobile access and the rise of smartphones have brought technologies into all aspects of our daily lives areas that were once the exclusive realm of our desktop computers. With these powerful tools playing an ever-greater role in almost every aspect of our lives from Internet-connected alarm clocks to location-aware dinner reservations many workers are left wondering why their companies tools lag behind. At the same time, many HR professionals wonder whether their businesses will really benefit from adopting these new tools. According to a December 2010 study by McKinsey 1, the answer is a resounding Yes. Surveying more than 3,000 companies, McKinsey reported that companies using Web 2.0 technologies were significantly outperforming those that weren t. Companies reported that social technologies made it easier to find experts and content while reducing communication, travel, and operational costs. Overall employee satisfaction was also higher. Employee Productivity is HR s Mission A good HR team can do more than keep the trains running on time. By aligning employees with company goals, providing successful onboarding and learning programs, and ensuring a consistent review and compensation process, HR professionals are central to their company s productivity. Yet providing access to necessary information for both new and established employees can hinder productivity. Knowledge workers spend 15-30% of their time searching for information, yet are successful just half the time 2 ; A majority of new 1 The rise of the networked enterprise: Web 2.0 finds its payday, McKinsey Quarterly, December 2010. 2 At the Speed of Business: 5 A s of the Corporate Learning Chain, Cushing Anderson, IDC, July 2003. 2
JAM SOLUTION hires fail to complete their first milestone on time 3 ; 95% of employees don t understand their company s strategy 4 ; and it costs companies an average of $1,400 to create one learning hour to resolve these issues. A big part of the problem is that in a traditional office setup, employees tend to have a good sense of what s happening in their immediate vicinity. As Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Thomas Allen said in 1977, Based on proximity, people are not likely to collaborate very often if they are more than 50 feet apart. How, then, can a modern business with offices across the country and even around the world, ensure employees are on the same page and learning from each other? Almost any HR professional or other company expert can relate to the frustration of receiving multiple emails and phone calls each day asking materially identical questions. If the answer to a question never changes like how to update an employee profile or open a purchase order every minute spent providing the same answer to another employee is a wasted minute. Social Technologies are Game-Changers The answers to these frequently asked questions probably exist somewhere; perhaps in an employee handbook or a corporate intranet. But most likely, the answers are rarely updated and difficult to find. As a result, employees don t see them as a reliable or efficient source of information. Bringing social methods and technologies into the workplace can dramatically alter the equation if you follow three basic steps: Step one: Make it easy to contribute Knowledge exchange doesn t work unless information is regularly contributed and updated. Many older technologies make this process cumbersome or impossible for most workers. It is critical to think of each employee as a source of knowledge, rather than just a recipient. Tools that facilitate contributions simple document and pdf uploading, screen capture, and adding audio and video to existing media can make content contribution feel like second nature. Step two: Make it easy to find It s human nature to take the shortest path between two points. If contributed content is buried, counterintuitive or otherwise cumbersome to find, employees will seek other options. If a question can t be answered with a simple search that produces immediate and accurate results, an employee will stop looking, potentially wasting valuable time and resources. Using social tools is like sitting next to the entire company. If an employee has a question, the answer is in plain sight. Step three: Make it mobile With all our connections and information just a click away on our smartphones, the time has come to allow employees to access the tools they need whether they are at their desks, in a sales meeting, or working from home. 3 The Aberdeen Group, Onboarding 2011, The Path to Productivity, March 2011. The Office of Strategy Management, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norten, Harvard Business Review, October 2005. 3
JAM SOLUTION Blended learning is the highest impact way to deliver corporate training on mission critical business initiatives the ROI for some of these programs has been more than 700%. Josh Bersin, Bersin and Associates Solutions You Can Use Right Now By scaling informal learning processes across your company, each employee can benefit from collective knowledge without interrupting their colleagues or diverting limited time and resources from other objectives. With many experienced Baby Boomer employees nearing retirement, now is a critical time to capture their knowledge in order to maintain continuity in the future. While social technologies certainly can play a direct role in increasing productivity and knowledge capture, they can also have an immediate impact on core HR activities. Here are three examples: Blended Learning: A study by the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), the world s largest association dedicated to workplace learning and development professionals, reported the average cost to create an hour of instructor-led training is nearly $1,400. Perhaps the most effective way to get more out of this sizable investment is to blend social with instructor-led training. By creating a private online forum or community setting, instructors can easily distribute materials to employees and engage in dialogue in a time-effective manner. Blended learning encourages greater participation which is proven to improve retention. Onboarding: The Aberdeen Group reports 5 that for most companies, a majority of new hires do not complete their first milestone on time and 39% are not retained after one year. Social tools for onboarding can get new hires up to speed faster and help them form a bond with each other and your company. By encouraging new hires to contribute knowledge and questions, you can help them understand your corporate culture and processes. Social tools also provide HR professionals with better analytics to monitor the progress of new hires more easily, ensure they are engaged, and spot possible problems before they emerge. Social Tools in Talent Management: Companies often struggle with semi-regular performance reviews, goal setting, and compensation analyses. Because reviews, goals and compensation play a critical role in employee morale and their alignment to your company s objectives, doing these processes well is critical to your company s success. Yet, because they happen just once or twice each year, it is difficult for managers to remember how to conduct them consistently. By providing clear, concise, and interactive performance review, goal setting and compensation planning tutorials online, managers can quickly refresh their memories on proper methods. Rather than flooding the HR department with questions as deadlines approach, managers can access this information easily and conveniently. This will free HR to counsel and coach managers on individual issues. Ultimately, having better information about employees in your talent management system will lead to better decisions on promotions and an informed succession planning process. Conclusion: Invest in Knowledge. Invest in People. We re in the early days of the emerging shared era, which will impact the ways we live our lives and do business for years to come. With increasing numbers of employees expecting information that is both interactive and on-demand, companies have a historic opportunity to get ahead of the trend by implementing innovative social tools today. By helping HR departments hire the right workers; help them acclimate quickly; and make all employees more productive, social tools can help HR improve productivity and improve your company s bottom line. In this way, HR can become a bigger part of your company s strategic thinking and bring stronger results company-wide than ever before. 5 The Aberdeen Group, Onboarding 2011, The Path to Productivity, March 2011. 4
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