Given the amount of change in business environments in the past few years, there have been several studies about the resultant skill gap in organizations. The challenge for many is identifying what capabilities are needed to drive the business forward in the New Normal. One thing is for sure, companies are starting to realize just how deep Social Media has permeated business practices and now is a good time to capitalize on the emerging skills.
How is your company using Social Media? It may sound like a stupid question but participation is not always in the obvious places and odds are your employees are finding ways to use it effectively and proficiently. Social Media taps into just about every department these days—HR and recruiting, sales, marketing, customer service, training, IT, even legal. And most businesses have a fragmented practice—each department is doing its own thing.
To optimize the knowledge and skills, survey your company to identify your existing social media practices by department. This will give you a basic understanding of who is doing what, on which sites, what core skills are used, what core skills are needed and the corresponding business goals that activity supports (if any). The next step is to leverage training that develops the critical technical skills and business knowledge. Last but not least, find what works best in your company (beyond formal training) to keep the learning going.
That’s the simple answer to a broad opportunity. Going forward, more companies will view Social Media skills as a job requirement for certain functional roles, and not just the obvious ones. It will help companies keep relevant in the New Normal and more importantly, it will be a contributing skill for improving business performance.
What do you see as the best skills to leverage and where besides Marketing do you use Social Media?
See also Do You Have Cracks In Your (Organizational) Foundation? For more conversation on Skill Gaps
