Feature

Is social networking revolutionizing the workplace?

Social networking is going to make a deep and pervasive impact on the way organizations are managing themselves, writes Vinita Gupta

Organizations have today realized that finding effective ways to share knowledge is the key to the company’s ability to develop and unify common business unit strategies. Thus organizations are increasingly employing blogs, wikis, and other new tools to form ad hoc communities that transcend departmental, organizational and geographical boundaries in the workplace. These new communities are changing the very nature of work and blurring the lines of demarcation in the organization’s value chain. But, at the same time, it is important that an organization should have control on its usage.

Social networking @ workplace

Just as social networking is revolutionizing media, culture, and the way people are doing business, it is profoundly reshaping organizations and workplaces too. It was the Internet that established the global economy, but it is social networking that is making it a reality.  The world has always believed in the collective wisdom of individuals but social networking is providing a platform for collective wisdom to take shape, and also people have greater access to such wisdom, more easily.

Vineet Tyagi, Associate Director of Engineering, Impetus Techno-logies pointed out that managing a workforce is a complex and ever-evolving process, and employers are continuously searching for the right solutions to help them address this challenge. “An online social network and knowledge community can strengthen an organization’s ability to understand the ways in which different parts of the system interact,” he said. It is within these new and shifting social networks that organizations find their best ideas, along with the innovations and applications that determine success.

With the rapid growth of consumer-oriented Web 2.0 applications, organizations are considering increasingly interactive strategies and technologies. While many corporations are using Web 2.0 elements such as blogs and wikis, others are just beginning to implement other elements of social networking. All of these systems could reduce the focus on traditional email and make work communication a more dynamic experience for employees.

Impetus focuses on upgrading and integrating various aspects of their internal technology initiatives, including providing Web solutions, such as wikis, blogs and social networking.

Sameer Walia, MD, The Smart Cube, however felt that social networking was not revolutionizing the workplace. According to him social networking has been still restricted to the private lives of employees. It is being used for professional purposes such as hiring, business development, etc. However, social networking has not yet crept into the workplace.

He added, “Organizations have managed themselves in pretty much the same manner for the last 20 years and even the advent of the Internet has not fundamentally changed the manner in which most companies are run.”

But Vadeesh Budramane, Managing Director, FCG Software Services disagrees with Walia. According to him social networking in a way is revolutionizing workplace.

Budramane said, “If we look at the modern workplace, we will find people using mails, blogs, and chats to effectively communicate with each other. Instant Messaging has become a powerful media of communication within companies as it makes things informal and connects people in real-time unlike mails. Also, it does not intrude to the extent a phone call would do. While mails at times give a feeling that things are dumped, chats sessions don’t, rather they help build better rapport.”

Communicating beyond work

Social networking allows organizations to be more productive by extending their brand and having better communication throughout the entire value chain. People can have regular conversations about not only direct work-related problems but also about more general discussions on the direction of the industry or the company and other things which may otherwise seem to be totally off the topic. It co-creates an atmosphere in which people are more likely to remember things that they want to share with other people.

“An online network also helps in removing any barriers to communication, something that an internal company’s face-to-face meeting might not be able to do. On the Internet, people are freer to speak their mind and are not inhibited by the presence of their managers or superiors. Therefore the medium provides for a more candid expression of their minds,” said Tyagi.

Budramane revealed that communication is a key challenge that all growing organizations are facing and social networks play an important role in the way communications are managed within an organization. An organization-wide email making an important announcement may or may not draw the attention of people. But when social networks are leveraged for the purpose of communication, they will make a huge impact and communication will then be effective.

Walia however asserted that when people share a connection that goes beyond work, it has a positive and healthy effect. Ideas flow without barriers and work always gets done. It’s definitely a great tool for everyone in the firm to know each other better. However, physical interaction, over a coffee or a drink, has a million times stronger impact than sharing photos on Facebook.

Need for tracking

The fundamental issue is how to keep such social networks alive and kicking. These do call for change in the mindset of the organization and constant encouragement and support from it. Secondly, to effectively use them for business benefits without having any adverse impact, it is important that the organization keep a close track on the activities and continuously update its list of do’s and don’ts.

Controlled usage of social networking is good for an organization. For example, blogs can be used to build awareness about corporate social responsibility. They can be used for creating technology user group forums. But IM when excessively used will blur the processes because IMs are used across teams and there can be a possibility that project requirements are discussed with team members directly without involving project managers. This may result in team members accepting the requirements without checking the impact on project timelines and quality expectations. The project may suffer in such situations.

Tyagi revealed that the right kind of online social network can bring the right people together with the right tools to facilitate the communication necessary to make this productive knowledge-transfer happen. So the companies should learn to leverage blogs, wikis, and other nascent tools that promote collaboration to enable high performance teams that create superior business outcomes.

Thus the Internet helps people to connect, thereby making it possible to strengthen social ties, within and beyond the workplace.  Organizations today are globally distributed and a well-tuned online social network can enhance the company’s collective global knowledge and sharpen its ability to act during the time of need.

vinita.gupta@expressindia.com