HOW SOCIAL MEDIA CAN HELP IN EFFECTIVE HR MANAGEMENT

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HOW SOCIAL MEDIA CAN HELP IN EFFECTIVE HR
MANAGEMENT November 13, 2015 Mukul Agarwal
In recent times social media has emerged as a
powerful HR tool for recruitment, engagement and
collaboration. This discipline involves in
selecting the suitable social media sites from
vastly available options and creating the
value of the organization. It is now crucial
for HRs to know the advantages and disadvantages
of the social media hiring and how to use it
effectively. Screening and Assessing the
Applicants Screening the candidates just by
seeing their resume is becoming an old time task.
In this online savvy world, companies are also
bringing in consideration the presence of
candidates on social media sites like
LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. The information
about the candidates is easily available on these
sites and it aids HRs in assessing the behaviour
and interest of the applicants they are about to
hire. Infact, there are many third party
agencies which offer professional services in
this field as well. Social Recruiting Social
Recruiting has emerged as an important pillar
when it comes to effective use of social media in
HR and recruitment process. A most popular
example here is of LinkedIn Jobs, which allows
recruiters to post their jobs and reach out to
its registered members, at some fees. However,
tools like Applicant Tracking System makes
social recruiting more cost-effective where
recruiters can post jobs to LinkedIn, Facebook
and Twitter at free of cost, and reach out to a
vast audience in no time. Connecting with other
like minded people
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Social media is loaded with relevant groups and
forums which connect HRs and other related
skilled professionals at one place. These forums
are there for the sole purpose of generating and
distributing informative knowledge of like minded
people. HRs need to be active in the group
activities to keep themselves updated about the
current trends in their profession. They can
post queries to get expert answers and even can
share their knowledge about the relevant topics.
Most popular HR forums in India are CiteHR and
HR.com. This is also a recommended way to create
self as well as company branding on social
media. Communicating to the Stakeholders Mistimed
communication to employees, customers or
stakeholders can harm many in the interest of the
company. Most importantly when it is about
policy changes, new product/service launch, good
news or even worrisome talks. Social media
platforms allow organisations to pass the
information to a large audience in short time. It
also effectively cuts down the rumors and
temporary excitement in the employees. Website
like Yammer is an enterprise social networking
site which facilitates question and answer
sessions, where everyone can clear any doubts
regarding new policies, system change and
procedures. Obtaining Feedback about the
Company HR managers mainly work on measuring and
improving employees performance in the
organization. But nowadays modern managers are
more eager to know the feedback about where the
company is standing in the market in terms of
employee satisfaction. Websites likeGlassdoor and
Quora are helpful for HR managers to gather the
positive and negative feedback of the company
culture, policies, hiring processes, etc from the
sources like job applicants, current employees
and former employees. Training and Development
of Talent Till recently HR managers have to
develop educational material, visit each of the
office locations and deliver training to their
employees. Thanks to the technology improvement,
now HR managers can create customized computer
based training and put them online
(e,gSlideshare) , so that employees around the
globe can use it. Online social media platforms
are able to create collaborative environment
where instructors and receivers can share the
knowledge informally and involve in healthy and
constructive discussions. (e.g video calling
through Skype and live presentations through
Gotomeeting or Join.me) To make more effective
and efficient use of Social media in recruitment,
HRs can look for the best social recruiting tool
available in the market. One of which is
Applicant Tracking System that can easily
automate sourcing of the profiles. The platform
allows users to integrate their personal as well
as companys social media accounts and post jobs
automatically to reach out to larger network.
Real time reports give insights on the
effectiveness of each social site.