The future of social employee engagement is now

Love it or hate it, social media has changed human behaviour and is not a trend that’s likely to fade out anytime soon. According to research in 2017 in the UK social media has over 39 million users and is expected to increase.

Whilst may organisations aren’t using Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook for their social employee engagement, many are adopting the concept and features that make these platforms successful and using those features to internally communicate.

Here’s our ‘How’ & ‘Why’ guide

Employee Engagement

Ultimately, employee engagement is about the relationship between the employee and the organisation and the organisation is a collection of people.

Therefore, tools which make relationships easier to forge, develop and strengthen will lead to colleagues engaging with leaders and each other.

See how Fanclub provides the social tools you need

Employee Empowerment

Dan Pink successfully highlighted people’s need to be autonomous back in the nineties.

Providing social media type tools which empowers employees to have a voice is hugely empowering and aligned with how employees use their voice outside of work.

Whilst it can be nerve wracking for organisations who are adopting social employee engagement tools for the first time, be aware of over regulating the use of those tools or adding in time delays or processes to mediate the employee voice.

The risk is lesser than you think, particularly if the tools aren’t anonymous.

Everything but the kitchen sink... (over reliance)

Internal communication teams and forward thinking HR departments are looking at ways to use social media for employee engagement and considering how to gain employee buy in and social engagement for new channels.

Once buy-in has been achieved there can be a tendency to use a single social employee engagement tool for everything from company news, to social events to recognition, and like the proverbial kitchen sink, the channel gets clogged.

Employees are unable to discern important company updates from the latest cute cat competition. It’s unlikely that one tool will meet all your needs and being clear about what you want the social media channel to achieve is important before you choose one.

Learn about 'How We Roll...'

Social Managers

More and more leaders are beginning to understand the power of social leadership.

Social employee engagement tools such as recognition platforms are a genius way to allow Senior Managers to be regularly and easily visible and talk directly to the people that work for them irrespective of geography and hierarchy.

However, don’t assume that because they have the tools they will necessarily be an early adopter.

Holding the relevant training to ensure that any mental barriers to being a Social Leader has been removed is vital, as well as confidence with the tool itself.

Learn about our ‘Ready to Recognise’ Leadership Training

Social Recognition

Peer to peer recognition is a fantastic place to start your journey into using social media for employee engagement.

The context is set for positivity & recognition and it’s easy for employees to understand how to interact; after all, we all know intrinsically how to say thank you.

It’s also a safe space for leaders to get involved, using the tool to say Well done or adding their thanks to great work that someone else has pointed out.