Influence of Social Media on HR Practices
Influence of Social Media on HR Practices
As authors like Perdue (2010) point out, businesses of all types are getting increasingly involved in social media campaigns in an attempt to reach to new audience and strengthen their ties with existing customers. In the same way, due to the increase in the number of internet users over the past decade across the globe, companies despite their size or nature are forced to come online in order to ensure a wider and better pool of potential employees.
The apparent and direct result is that the process of HR has been greatly influenced by social media. To illustrate, the new trend has helped firms to recruit potential candidates, resulting in an overall positive improvement. An increase in the success rate of recruitment is one of the major positive impacts of social media. Now a company can simply post a job opening on their social media page instead of publishing it in a local newspaper or using any other print or visual media. Admittedly, this has let them browse through a list of candidates before short-listing them.
Social media websites have helped the company to improve their communication with the employees. Now a simple post on Twitter or Facebook is enough to let the workers know the upcoming events (if any). This is the easiest method for passing any information on to the members today.
The companies can also improve their reputation and brand online through these sites in a number of ways like answering customers quickly, solving their complaints, acknowledging them for their support, etc. Any issue like a fraud or misleading information about the company can also be cleared. According to Bondrouk and Olivas-Lujan (2013, p. 23), HR professionals are well conversant with the power of information sharing, and they consider social media as the best means for employee selection and retention.
Managements today post details of remarkable performers on social media sites as recognition for their achievement. This strategy works as an intrinsic reward because a post on a social media site has great exposure to wide audience.
Social media websites have negative effects also on the HR practices of business today. It is likely that any issue related to HR would spread on the internet in no time if dissatisfied employees posts negative messages.
References
Bondrouk, T & Olivas-Lujan, M. R. (2013). Social Media In Human Resource Management. Emerald Group Publishing.
Perdue, D. J. (2010). Social Media Marketing: Gaining a Competitive Advantage by Reaching the Masses. Senior Honors Theses. 127. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/honors/127
