HR engages in the social and mobile arenas... er... what arenas?

The importance of social media to HR is now so obvious that even the CIPD's  house magazine People Management has published a list of  HR's " top power tweeters". Other evidence is the plethora of conferences last month where social media was a key topic: TruLondon,  the Kelly OCG Talent Strategy Summit in Dublin and HR Tech Europe Conference in Amsterdam (for more on these see below).  

In a recent article China Gorman , former head of US HR body SHRM,  asked "Is HR mad for social?" Gorman sounds a note of caution about the hype surrounding social media and mobile technology at these recent events (she seems to have been to them all).  

Vendors and consultants gushed about organisations using social networks to achieve business outcomes, and about how mobile devices and social networks are changing the way we work, and how 'Big Data' and 'social' are boosting strategic impact, and how "social and mobile arenas"will be deployed for talent acquisition (what sad old school HR types used to call "recruitment" back in the day) and learning and development. One speaker claimed playing computer games is equipping Gen Y with workplace skills, which is not very helpful to those of us with 16 year-old sons who we ae constantly telling to get off that computer game and do some homework. 

Gorman warns:

"We must ensure that any new solution we introduce into our organizations does 3 things: 

• Strengthens the relationships between employees and their managers, employees and customers, and employees and senior leadership 
• Is based on, collects and produces actionable data
• Links with the talent strategy - which is rooted in the business strategy"

Another article, "IBM knows what your CEO is thinking - do you?" by Darcy Jacobsen on Globoforce, looks at recent research by IT firm IBM which shows the top source of "sustainable economic value" for CEOs around the world is "human capital", selected as a priority by 71%, more than customer relationships (66%) or products/services innovation (52%) 

Jacobsen quotes the IBM report:

"CEOs have a new strategy in the unending war for talent: They are creating more open and collaborative cultures - encouraging employees to connect, learn from each other and thrive in a world of rapid change. Collaboration is the number one trait CEOs are seeking in their employees, with 75 percent of CEOs calling it critical."

This, of course, implies a strong role for social media, whether internal or external. 

HR seems to be on a learning curve with all things social, however. One of the CIPD's "power tweeters", Sukh Pabial, recently blogged on the subject of Big Data and after trying to find out what "Big Data" actually means (on Wikipedia among other places), finally asked, "So, where does HR fit into all of this? Well, I'm not entirely sure." 

Perhaps that says it all.  

More on the recent conferences from XpertHR

#TRULONDON 2012 (1): Does talent grow on trees? By Michael Carty on XpertHR

#TRULONDON 2012 (2): How #HRTECH can unlock the potential of "the video game generation" by Michael Carty on XpertHR.

This is my latest HR strategy round up covering topics including talent management, HR's role in a natural disaster,  leadership, employee engagement, management and the future of HR.