Is Social Media the Ticket to Being a Credible HR Activist? + HR Bloggers Panel @ SHRM09, the Video Re-Cap!

Last week, Kris and I were on a panel at the SHRM09 conference talking about ourselves, which we like to do at every possible chance… you know what they say about bloggers being narcissistic… During that session, the question was asked very simply, why blog? What's in it for an HR pro who decides to blog? (Check out the video for that session at the bottom of the post… email subscribers click through to watch!)

First, I won't advocate for all HR or recruiting pros to jump in and start a blog. Sorry to be a snob about it, but it's just that there's a lot of noise in the blogosphere already and sometimes, I just don't want to hear another voice unless you have a very clear viewpoint and perspective. You know what I mean? But paying attention to the blogosphere and speaking the language of social media? I think that's important. Even if you aren't actively blogging, being involved in the community, paying attention to new and emerging technologies and the effect of said technology on your staff and the workplace is an issue that can be boiled down to… credibility. And don't you want to be a credible HR activist?

For me? I began thinking that maybe I had figured something out with all this blogging and social media stuff when I started getting questions from my very senior most leadership about how to use Facebook and LinkedIn. The questions have ranged from how to post links to Facebook profiles so all of their friends see the link, to how can we use social networks to better position some of our senior staff as subject matter experts, to can we engage former staff and their professional contacts and networks digitally?

Mind you, most of my work falls in the recruiting space on a day to day basis – I'm interviewing people, I'm checking references, I'm making job offers… and yet my leadership team started coming to me with questions about social media. Interesting, right? And to take it a step further, I really realized that our HR team may have figured something out when our company's first foray into the world of social media began with a Facebook page dedicated to careers with our company. And it wasn't driven by marketing, it wasn't driven by technical staff – it was the stereotypical fuddy-duddy 'ole HR team who drove it. Think about the kind of message that sends about our credibility as an HR function.

You're reading this blog, so you probably get it already. But there are others you should be emailing this post to. Really. So spread the love and tell a friend… because there are many, many reasons for an HR pro to get involved in the blogosphere and social media. Think about its impact to employee engagement, employment branding, candidate sourcing and knowledge acquisition/professional development… but then there's also very simply the issue of managing these tools in the workplace. If a line manager comes to an HR pro with a concern about their employee "tweeting" too much and you don't know what Twitter is… then that's kind of a problem. As HR pros, we can be better, we can do better… so let's get ahead of the curve, folks.  Ready to dive in with social media?

Editor's Note- Jessica Lee is a Sr. Employment Manager for APCO Worldwide, a global PR firm in D.C. Like most upscale HR pros, she spends half of her time on recruiting, the other half on ER, Training and OD.  When she's not hammering a candidate to determine Motivational Fit, she's thinking about the future of HR, and wondering how she can avoid using the job boards to fill the next spot in her organization…