Companies that focus only on the risks could get left behind
Social media can be used as a way to foster collaboration and communication in the workplace. Photo / AP
Have you heard the Buzz? That's Google's new experiment in social networking, linked to its Gmail service. It's another place online to populate with the detritus of your life, your job, your brain.
Where might it lead? What can you make it do? Will it replace similar services like Facebook or Twitter? I don't know. Google doesn't know. Rupert Murdoch doesn't know.
Bill Gates doesn't know, but he should be worried, particularly if it evolves into an effective content management and collaboration tool to supplant SharePoint and other high-priced Microsoft offerings.
What we've been watching with these past few years of social networking sites is evolution at a rapid pace, changing the way our workplaces and societies function.
That's why a device like Apple's iPad is interesting; not for what it can do now - can it replace an Airbook, is it better than a Kindle? - but for how it might fit in with all the new applications and interactions and everything else going on out there.
Recruitment firm Manpower Professional has been looking at social networking and how it affects the workplace. Its survey of more than 34,000 employers in 35 countries, including New Zealand, found only 20 per cent had had a formal policy about use of social networking sites in the workplace, and three quarters had no policies at all.
In New Zealand the figure was higher, with a third of firms saying they had policies.
The benefits identified by New Zealand firms were minimising productivity loss (76 per cent); helping protect intellectual property and proprietary information (40 per cent); protecting the organisation's reputation (40 per cent); and improving recruiting (19 per cent). Responses in each of these four categories exceeded the global average.
Chris Riley, Manpower's New Zealand manager, says employees will be using such tools anyway, and organisations need to get assess to not only the potential risks but the opportunities that throws up.
"The risk with social media is that once you flick that switch, you are exposed," Riley says. He says social media is blurring the distinction between work use and personal use, redefining the way we work.
Limiting or blocking access to sites won't work, as employees will just pull out their smartphones and log on.
Manpower believes organisations should look at what the connective power of social media can do to enhance productivity, innovation, collaboration, reputation and employee engagement.
Policy should look at taking advantage of potential benefits, rather than being blanket prohibitions or a focus only on risk.
A total of 39 per cent of New Zealand employers surveyed believe it can boost brand building, and 16 per cent see it as a way to foster collaboration and communication.
"Most companies are only scratching the surface in understanding how these tools can be used in the workplace," Riley says.
Rather than impose rules, Manpower recommends firms work with employees who are already familiar with the collaborative social media space to develop guidelines for use, which are more likely to be accepted.
Riley says organisations may want to look at using social media themselves to help employees feel truly connected and positive about their employer.
Looking to the future, more than one in four New Zealand companies believed the most important use of social media in future would be helping to build their brand.
Other employers expect its greatest value will come from recruiting staff or assessing potential employees before hiring, and smaller numbers were looking at it for fostering communication and collaboration and driving innovation.
And despite some high profile cases which have led, for example, to employees being sacked for slagging off their bosses or workplaces online, only 4 per cent of New Zealand firms felt employee use of external social networking sites had ever negatively impacted their organisation's reputation.
The survey may give more organisations an incentive to make 2010 the year they give serious thought to the new social landscape.
There's an advantage in getting in early, as a Grey Lynn wine shop has found.
Several times a week the Wine Vault posts "independent and honest" video reviews of New Zealand wines to eight online platforms, including its winevaulttv.com site. All postings are tagged to its ecommerce site, and it now sells 20 per cent of its wine online, helping it keep ahead of the competition from nearby supermarkets.
Director Jayson Bryant started using social media early in 2008.
"The people using these sites are people with disposable income and decision makers in business. They are able to communicate, and they like getting recommendations on the fly," he says.
Adam Gifford
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By Adam Gifford | Email Adam
Around 50 social media practitioners, digital natives and 
