Seriously, how dumb are your employees?
I mean, God forbid you open up their ability and time to converse on social media networks with actual customers! What good could come from that?
One of the resistance maneuvers I hear all the time when talking with businesses regarding the internal shifts necessary when implementing a social business structure and Social CRM system, is that they’re not sure how much trust they have in their employees interacting online freely, and that it would be too difficult to train everyone.
“But what about what happened to GM?”
“But what about the Kenneth Cole thing?”
Aside from the fact that this same argument was used with the implementation of the phone, computer, fax machine, email and Internet and all those turned out to be not only helpful, but necessary for business, the real problem here is simple and I tell it to every company I’ve ever worked with that had these fears:
You don’t have a social media problem, you have a hiring problem.
There are truths regarding people and one of those is that people don’t purposefully sabotage groups and organizations they enjoy and respect.
Another truth is that when given clear and understandable guidelines within a system they respect, those guidelines will be followed.
Within those two statements there are 3 important terms to note for your company:
- Respect
- Guidelines
- System
Respect
So, if it’s true that people aren’t going to ruin something they respect, it becomes your job as an executive team to foster an atmosphere of mutual respect between employee and C-Suite. While this shouldn’t come as some giant shocker to anyone whose been in business for more than, let’s say, 5 minutes, it doesn’t appear to be common practice in the business world. According to the American Psychological Association, half of all employees who said they feel like they’re not respected at work said they intend to look for a new job in the next year. The same study went on to show though that 90% of workers who reported feeling respected said they are motivated to do their best work and comply with company policies and regulations. So, when you openly show employees they are respected by the company, they respect you back and are motivated to comply with your policies and guidelines (keep reading). That’s step one.
Guidelines
While you shouldn’t be afraid of social media, opening the social communications floodgates and leaving your employees alone to navigate the waters is also asking for trouble. As discussed before, one of the first things you need to fully realize is that a mapped out social communications guidelines document will outline all policies and procedures surrounding employee actions in social media. This document should also go so far as to document which systems will be used for what and under what circumstances (i.e. in my last agency I implemented a system for desktops and phones where all client Twitter communications took place through Hootsuite and all personal Tweeting was done through the regular Twitter app, basically eliminating all possibility of a GM-like episode). Make sure these guidelines are in-hand with all employees and that they understand them during the training process.
System
Finally, we’re getting to the systems side of things. I’m not going to go into detail here because we’ve talked about systems and strategies before, but after you’ve created a culture of respect and produced guidelines that your employees can follow, begin implementing your systems and then rest assured that you can trust the people you’ve empowered and educated in those systems.
If you get through all the steps and STILL can’t trust your employees, no amount of consultation is going to help because you are hiring people that you ultimately do not trust. Build teams around responsibilities AND personalities, because you need to be able to trust your workforce.
But in the end, I can’t help you with that issue. That’s a hiring problem, not a social business problem.
Thoughts?
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G’Day Joey
, Way back in the 1980s the great Tom Gilbert told us that the biggest single reason that employees don’t perform is that they don’t know what’s expected of them. The Noone Corollorary states “But their managers think they do.”
So……tell people exactly what you expect of them in measureable, performance terms. Then tell them how their performance will be measured.
And always remember…..the prime responsibility that a manager has toward his or her employees is to put systems in place that make it impossible for them to fail.
Best Wishes
Leon
@Leon Leon, it seems that we’re seeing eye to eye once again and I like to see that. Thanks for the GREAT comment!
Good point, “not a social media problem, a hiring problem”. I believe this is the root problem in all new technology, hiring the right team who believe in the system, the product and the policy. Good article.
Good point, “not a social media problem, a hiring problem”. I believe this is the root problem in all new technology, hiring the right team who believe in the system, the product and the policy. Good article.
Thanks Chris! Glad you agree, workforce management can be a touchy subject, but it’s important to keep in mind when looking at the whole scope of Social CRM.
Thanks Chris! Glad you agree, workforce management can be a touchy subject, but it’s important to keep in mind when looking at the whole scope of Social CRM.
[...] and if so, how can businesses escape that trap, especially when all their focus is on implementing new systems that inherently are trying to make everyone act and react in the same ways to similar [...]
All CRM starts with hiring – I wrote a little about that idea here http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/74106.html – and every management team battles with the uncertainty of whether or not they can trust their employees in the social era. My take is that companies have little choice but to find out – hiding from social is impossible, and increasingly customers are the ones choosing who in the company they start conversations with. Now’s the time to learn about your employees’ and your management’s abilities.
@Bucholtz I definitely agree. I see so many companies that try to hide from social (or simply ignore it) to disastrous effects. It takes a bit of har work, but wrapping an organization’s workings around the trust and guidelines necessary is a much better long-term strategy.