THE NEW MEDIA (SOCIAL MEDIA) AS A VIABLE TOOL FOR HUMAN RESOURCE CONNECTION AND DEVELOPMENT

Social media are information-based tools and technologies used to share information and facilitate communications with internal and external audiences. Well-known examples of social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but social media can take many different forms.

Those forms can include: Internet forums, online profiles, podcasts, pictures and video, e-mail, instant messaging, music sharing programs, and Internet-based voice services (voice over IP), to name just a few. Social media also include applications sometimes known as "Web 2.0," a term encompassing technologies such as blogs, texting, wikis, and other applications like Google Reader, Google Docs and Ryze, a site linking business professionals.

Organizations can make use of social media in a variety of ways. Departments can hold brainstorming sessions or maintain ongoing conversations with questions and answers on a blog; teams can use wikis to manage projects, share best practices and research case studies; the CEO can keep a blog or record a podcast and organizations can immediately deliver news to employees.

Collaborative technologies are valuable in the workplace because of their effectiveness in improving understanding and teamwork, building relationships and developing lateral communication. The novel aspect of social media is their conversational tone: Knowledge sharing takes place through processes including discussion with questions and answers (online forums), collaborative editing (wikis) or storytelling with reactions (blogs).

Over the last few years, social media tools – including blogs, wikis, social networks, video sharing, and community sites, among others – have changed the landscape of the Internet, becoming key tools for network building, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. Now, for those very same purposes, these tools are increasingly being used in the workplace. 

The benefits of social media have gone as far as being appreciated in human resources circles, and business organizations in Barbados can no longer pass on the creation of networks via social media. 

As a tremendous form of extensive communication and the development of social relationships, organizations across the globe have counted on social media much more than ever before. They use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and their very own internal social networking sites to reach out to diverse demographics in obtaining top talent and retaining tacit knowledge.

Business organizations have used social media to enhance innovation and knowledge creation, which has in turn proved to be highly beneficial in driving effective change and improving performance.

 The impacts that the use of social media has had on employees’ engagement and job satisfaction cannot be ignored. The basis of this impact is the fact that social media is not just something that employees need; it is something that organizations have to take up for the sake of the future. It is also highly important to evaluate the extent to which social media can be beneficial to organizations and employees in terms of talent development. The combination of these impacts results in increased overall operational efficiency. 

This literature review seeks to evaluate the various impacts that social media has had on the recruitment processes, innovation and knowledge creation, talent development, employee engagement, and the overall operational efficiency.

Recruitment via social media is currently a very hot topic with multiple articles being released daily. These tend to swing between polar opposites regarding the usefulness of social media to recruitment. The reality lies somewhere in the middle. The use of social media such as blogs, networking sites and micro-blogging is on the rise through the enterprise environment. Benefits have been seen particularly in the areas of recruitment and brand awareness with some companies reporting increased sales after initiating a targeted online strategy. Not only did it have a positive impact, but it is also inexpensive. 

Amid the current economic hardships plaguing organizations across the globe, HR professionals are challenged to do more with less and for this very reason using social media as a tool for recruitment are a cost effective way. 

Social networking advances a whole new frontier of organizational dialogue, setting the stage for continuous knowledge creation and organizational agility,” (Jue, Marr & Kassotakis, p.105). The fact that social networking sites are internet-based makes it accessible to the entire world, which holds an amazingly diverse pool of talents and capabilities. As a result, various persons can access and exchange information that users generate, in the most convenient of ways. This exchange of information facilitates the development of ideas by conversing users as they become socially connected. 

Researchers also found that organizational social media websites are time-efficient, inexpensive and customizable which significantly increases the efficiency of recruitment of employees. They can easily analyze the thousands of resumes and applications through the system where they could be able to filter and view the information in more meaningful way. 

Social media changes Human Resource, forcing them to consider technology and the online conversation in everything they do. Online social platforms are the conversations Human Resource and senior executives can no longer afford to ignore. Social media changes business. Social media changes Human Resource. Social media is engagement.  Social media changes everything.

Name: CHUKWUMAH LOVETH AMEDU

Code No: OS/21A/2034

Course: MICROBIOLOGY

Institution: FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC, NEKEDE 

State of Origin: ANAMBRA STATE