While it seems like it’s been around forever, social media in reality is a revolutionary form of communication and engagement. It may still be in its infancy, but social media has become a powerful way to transform practically every facet of people’s lives, including their professional lives.
Relative to the workplace, social media’s impact is no less influential. In fact, social media has become a modern movement in the workplace for both employees and employers. Employees are now discussing the kind of work they do, who they work for, and the possibilities for new job opportunities, all with the help of social media. Employers are using social media to recruit and retain the best talent. Inevitably, these trends won’t subside and will likely become more fluid and dynamic as the personal and professional lives of today’s workers continue to mirror one another.
Employees are more social and more flexible in the way they engage with trusted friends and work colleagues and now expect to communicate via social media on the job. Employers are indeed seeing the impact that access to “smart” and social technology has on retention as the work and personal lives of today’s employees are more commonly blended together. Suddenly, employees have the flexibility to engage socially or accomplish work tasks at any given time.
According to the most recent findings of the Kelly Global Workforce Index (KGWI), an annual survey conducted by Kelly Services, there are some key ways social media will influence workplace trends in the coming years. The latest KGWI findings reveal that 39 percent of survey respondents in the U.S. are increasingly relying on social media to search for jobs. This means that traditional job search methods, like newspaper advertisements, recruitment companies, and even online job boards are losing ground among those who are looking to expand their careers.
Consequently, 32 percent say that they use their own social media networks to make decisions regarding new career opportunities, acknowledging that the continual connections they make can have positive results.
These are strong indicators that social media is more important than ever for those engaged in an active job search, which also means that the key trend of developing a “personal brand” as well as maintaining a “clean” digital presence will remain strong prerequisites for a job candidate. To increase their positive job search results, people will need to be vigilant about their online presence, knowing that professional opportunities can live — and die — by how employers analyze who they are and what employers see about them on social networks.
Another key trend is how employers will increasingly rely on social networks to find all types of job candidates. By relying on social media, the KGWI found, employers will increase their recruitment results and find it easier to perhaps match people who aren’t even actively searching for a job to new and better opportunities.
But employers will need to be mindful that potential employees are also making decisions about jobs largely with regard to how an employer sees the social media trend. Will employers be willing to do what it takes, like provide electronic devices that can be used for work and personal use to employees? Especially for professional and technical workers, 67 percent rate this kind of freedom on the job as very important according to the KGWI — and candidates are using this measure of an employer to influence where they would be willing to work.
It’s clear that social media in the workplace isn’t going away anytime soon. Both employees and employers will need to embrace it in 2014 and beyond to expand their horizons and make better choices when it comes to the modern workplace.
Eileen Candels is vice president of the Hartford area offices of Kelly Services, a global workforce solution provider.
