Trying to make employees change the way they have got used to working for quite some time can be challenging, which is why IT leaders longing for a more collaborate office culture find themselves trapped in a difficult spot with employees reluctant to overcome the organization inertia and do business in a new way (p.75). Moreover, employees are usually pressed by time in their workplace, which leaves them limited time left to dive into a new software tool, plus it is hard for people that have been working in more traditional ways to embrace new technologies, and for that reason they need incentive (p.75). It is not wonder that “only 22 per cent of social software users believe the technology to be necessary to their jobs” (p.75), since most employers do not provide their workforce with strong motivation. Other than that, internal corporate social networks need to be user-friendly, easy to access and up to date, allowing users to easily connect with those that have the information they need (p.75).
Also, the features hosted in the internal social networks need to meet the employees’ needs, which is why profiles is the most commonly used feature on most corporate networks, while features like blogs and wikis are scarcely used by workers (p.75). Finally, network integration via email is also significant, since people will definitely appreciate to be given the chance to receive email alerts over any new post on the network, quickly respond to the posts and link directly to locations over the net (p.75). The use of analytics to measure the impact of internal social corporate networks and come up with strategies to improve adoption rates could also be a wise move (p.75). Video collaboration could also generate faster, richer and more efficient interactions (Forrester Consulting, 2010).
CSC managed to successfully implement internal social networks due to the fact that they have launched a very familiar and user friendly software that their high knowledge employees could easily use (p.76). Moreover, they used a widely preferred software, Jive, and allowed the company to not only network internally, but also collaborate with their partners, suppliers and customers outside the corporation (p.76). Plus, they gave their employees incentive to use the social networks, by allowing the best users to form groups on their own, and declared the best as “champions” with all deriving benefits (p.76).
Yum! Chose the same pattern like CSC and used Jive’s live platform, due to its constant upgrade (p.76). The company made a difference from CSC’s approach by generating sentiment to their workers, as they decided to market the new social network to their employees, like any other product (p.76).
Robin Hamburger restaurant chain wanted to make their employees work the way they do outside the company and for that reason they chose a viral approach to drive adoption, which finally worked as workers found a very familiar platform to collaborate and share knowledge (p.76).
Internal enterprise social networks should be implemented by all companies given the broad array of benefits provided that add value to the company. Corporations now have the opportunity to increased knowledge sharing, faster and more direct access to expertise and innovative ideas, as served by social technologies (Forrester Consulting, 2010). Based on the pilots and efforts that have proven fruitful in supporting the aforementioned endeavors, new technologies are definitely here to help companies sprint their competitors and make the difference, due to knowledge employees (Forrester Consulting, 2010).
References:
Forrester Consulting, Social Networking In The Enterprise: Benefits And Inhibitors, 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps10680/ps10683/ps10668/soc_nw_en_tlp.pdf
