I just read an article which (among other things) suggests following your employees’ social media updates to gain insight into them and possible workplace issues. I cringed when I read it and I re-read it five times to make sure I wasn’t missing something. What did we do in the days before social media? And should we consider monitoring employees a responsible management technique?
As a conversation starter, the article uses an example of an employee who is up late, tweets about his/her fifth cup of coffee and comes into the office looking tired and sluggish. The manager can use the insight to ask the employee if he’s overworked. Huh? The context for this example is that social media can help you identify areas of trouble for employees or the workplace that you may not otherwise see.
I get the point, but I think that’s a slippery slope if your efforts are un-formed and uneducated. Social media doesn’t replace the basic fundamentals of people management. If you don’t consider work factors such as a change in productivity or work output, then tweets aren’t going to help you and they may misguide you. If you reacted to every single tweet or post, or responded to what you thought was a possible work issue, then you might want to put a couch in your office and place an “in therapy” sign on your door. That’s all you’ll be doing.
The second example encouraged reading Facebook pages and even setting up a social media search to monitor employees. Manager McCreepy comes to mind. If the recommended management tools come down to Google alerts and social media updates, then I think we’ve missed the mark about what it means to be a manager.
My point is that some of these things are great tools for the workplace but you need to think them through. Can you imagine an employee walking into your office to find his/her aggregated social media activity on your computer? How will you explain it? How do you think the employee will feel? How will you repair the relationship? What would you do with the information you find without overstepping their privacy? How will you manage the workplace fallout, because that news will spread quickly—and probably on Facebook and Twitter…If you’re linked to your employees, you should have legitimate, justifiable work objectives and full transparency.
Social media can be a productive tool for managing employees but it must be done with integrity and with specific work objectives in mind. In defense of the article, it does talk about setting up company policy, training, etc. but not in the context of managing employees. Social media can be a great communication tool, a vehicle for building teamwork, best practices, collaboration, etc. Social media does not replace management responsibilities, so here are some Don’ts to consider:
- Don’t use social media as an employee-tracking tool.
- Don’t assume that the management environment hasn’t changed, it has.
- Don’t assume your managers have the skills to manage the social media-related issues without guidance and training. Social media create a lot of opportunity but also a lot of risk, make sure your managers are trained on what is legally appropriate.
- Don’t think social media is bad for your business or your workplace. Encourage its use to support your business, but set guidelines and equip employees with the knowledge and skills to establish formal, productive work initiatives.
- Don’t manage the tweets and updates and fail to manage your employees.
- Don’t ignore the development or revision of your company policy. Help yourself and your employees by developing (or updating) policy that defines what’s acceptable to your work and culture.
- Don’t connect with your employees or use it to manage your employees unless you have a plan and goals in mind for doing so—a plan and goals that your employees fully understand.
Clearly, I don’t advocate using social media to check up on your employees. If social media factors into managing your employees (and it’s likely that it will), then use it as a tool to enhance your work relationships and output. Most importantly, take the time to build the relationship, trust and communication channels to connect with your employees. You’ll get more out of them and from them if you manage in the 3D world, and use social media in the proper context.
