How social media can improve employee engagement

A staggering 42% of the world’s population use social media ­̶ that’s more than three billion people! So it’s not surprising that social media has become an increasingly important part of most American business strategies, used to attract new customers, recruit top talent, and build brand awareness at home and abroad.

However, social media also helps create a more engaged and productive workforce by enhancing:

• communication and collaboration
• learning and development
• work processes and flow
• rewards and recognition
• team building

With approximately 223 million Americans now on social media, more and more companies are building brand awareness and an engaged workforce by encouraging employees to post positive work-related news on their personal pages. 

Putting social media to work

Here are some ways businesses of every size can harness the power of social media and their people:

1. Establish a corporate social media policy that provides clear instructions on what employees should not post on work and personal sites (e.g. confidential information, inflammatory comments).
2. Provide training on the company’s social media policy and how social media benefits both the organization and employees.
3. Make it easy. Create company hashtags and provide relevant and interesting content employees want to share.
4. Partner with a comprehensive employee assistance program (EAP) like LifeWorks, whose Social Wellbeing program provides employees with:
   • personalized news feeds of wellbeing content
   • community news hub to share and distribute important business communications, internal news and personal and team news
   • a gamification tool for recognition activity and company-wide initiatives
   • thank you notifications from business leaders
5. Ways to track and analyze social media presence. Most social media sites offer key metrics.

While there many steps involved in the creation of an effective and far-reaching corporate social media strategy, the foundation is laid by providing an internal platform on which employees can become familiar with collaborating, building relationships, celebrating accomplishments, sharing good news, and receiving timely company and industry information online. And Lifeworks can help.