Type “screening applicants with social media” in your Google box sometime. You might be surprised by the results. I certainly was.

I had expected to find lots of pages with a title like “Five Tips for Using Social Media When Hiring.” I found some of those, of course, but I found a lot – and I mean dozens – of articles and blog posts on legal issues surrounding hiring via social media. And I thought the world of staffing software was legally complicated…

I’ve written previously about the importance of using social networks when recruiting. After all, a social network is like any other network, and staffers have always relied on networks – their own and their friends’ – to find good applicants. I stand by this, and I can’t imagine any lawyer having a problem with it.

But I was surprised to find that whether applicants have an expectation of privacy with regard to the content they post on social media sites is an unsettled area of the law. After all, I thought, social media is inherently public. If you don’t want people to know about something, don’t write about it in a blog, Facebook post, tweet, or whatever. Simple, right?

Not quite. As one lawyer pointed out, employers are generally prohibited from inquiring about an applicant’s race, political affiliation, marital status, sexual orientation or disability status. But most of this information is readily available if someone has a Facebook account. So a potential employer can’t ask about such things, but they can know them, which means…what? They shouldn’t use such information when hiring, but what’s to stop them?

Another lawyer noted that many employers have established clear policies about using internet-related information when making employment decisions – policies which, he points out, were worked out in conjunction with a labor lawyer. Some policies include a general disclosure (“We may review information we find on social network sites”), and some reaffirm that they do not discriminate on the basis of X, Y Z, A, B, and C even if those things are known via social networks.

It’s worth noting that such legal concerns don’t seem to be worrying a lot of companies. According to a CareerBuilder survey of 2,600 employers in 2009, 45 percent reported using social media sites in an attempt to research a candidate with another 11 percent planning to begin utilizing social media account reviews this year. And a surprising 35 percent said that they had relied solely on a candidate’s social media site when deciding to hire him (or her) or not. (Take note, applicants!) I can only imagine that those numbers have gone up in the last two years.

How will you augment your staffing software with social media? Whatever you do, think it through first. I won’t recommend calling a lawyer, but neither will I say that that’s a bad idea. Again, think it through. And be careful.

Stay tuned for the latest developments in this field and, of course, in the field of staffing solutions. Now that I’ve starting writing on this topic, I can tell that I won’t be able to stop. If you come across interesting cases and/or commentaries, please send them to me or leave a comment below.

Screening Applicants With Social Media is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

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Social Media, recently and over the past few years, has gotten bigger and bigger. With websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many others, a whole new path of interaction for businesses and their recruiteres has been opened. It gives companies a chance to make new connections with potential passive contacts. Just like with anything, there are many great ways it can be utilized by recruiters, but there are also a number of potholes to look out for if you want to make sure to use social networking in the best way.

1. Spam. A lot of social media websites lend themselves to being used constantly. While tweeting or posting what you’re doing every ten minutes might be okay for a personal account on one of these websites, if your business does the same, people will get annoyed fast. If your tweets are so frequent that they fill up the feeds of everyone following you – whether or not the content you are posting may be relevant or interesting – they will get annoyed and could be compelled to remove you from their feed. Like with all things, moderation is important.
2. Inactivity. On the opposite side of posting too much is not posting enough. Once you make an account on a social networking site and people know that you are there, if you abandon it, it is likely that potential candidates, customers or contacts will see it and assume that you are no longer in business, or some other unfortunate outcome.
3. Impersonal. Just like with the two sides of the coin when it come to how much content you post, there is the question of what content you post. I have seen Facebook pages for companies that have little to no information save for a link to their company’s website and a few words. While this may seem more stoic and businesslike, it leaves a lot to be assumed. Having some information about the company, and even the people who work there, adds a personal touch and as long as it is done tastefully, can help keep people revisiting your page.
4. Too personal. The other side of this coin is posting too much personal information. It’s endearing to see a post celebrating someone’s birthday or something that is as much of a milestone as that, but if too much is posted, such as a comment about office shenanigans multiple times a day, it gives an air that is not as businesslike as most people prefer.
5. Lack of interaction. Remember that just posting tweets or updates isn’t the only way to take part in social networking, but discussing and interacting with others who are posting on their own and your pages as well can make you more interesting to them and others who see their pages.

 I hope that these five things to look out for will help you better manage your social networking now and for the time to come. To stay at the edge of issues on HR and staffing, be sure to subscribe to the Human Capital Supply Chain Blog.

Top 5 Social Networking Potholes is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

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In two previous posts I discussed whether LinkedIn will Replace Monster & Careerbuilder and shared 5 Ways Staffing Professionals Can Leverage LinkedIn.  Here are some stats with regards to how many of your recruiting peers are using social media now or are planning to in the next 12 months. I hope you’re one of them!

Survey results from Jobvite’s 2010 recruiting survey found that 83% of respondents (over 600 human resources and recruitment professionals completed Jobvite’s online survey) use or plan to use social networking for recruiting in 2011. The big sites used: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Regarding candidate quality, respondents rates job boards worst, referrals best, and social networks somewhere in the middle

Some more interesting numbers from the survey:

• 46% of respondents plan to spend more on social recruiting in the coming year
• 36% will spend less on job boards and 38% will spend less on third party recruiters and search firms
• 71% of survey respondents are hiring
• 92% of those actively hiring currently use or plan to recruit via social networks

What does this all mean? I don’t know if the days of Monster and Careerbuilder are numbered – they still have significant databases, and Careerbuilder, at least, has enough money to advertise during the Super Bowl – but the enormous potential of the “big three” social networking sites for recruiting is definitely untapped as many recruiters and organizations still struggle with exactly how to incorporate social media into their marketing mix AND keep permanent records of all those conversations in their recruiting software.

The companies that are truly leading the field are using recruiting and staffing software that incorporates social media making it even faster and easier to stay connected with candidates and clients.

These numbers also mean that job seekers should definitely incorporate social media into their job hunting toolbox.

If you’re not sure how to use social media in recruiting, stay subscribe to this blog as I’ll be passing on tips for using social networking for recruiting. If you have some of your own, please share them below.

The Use of Social Networks in Recruiting Continues to Grow is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

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Sometimes the simplest of employee problems can end up making big waves down the line – here are five common employee problems and suggestions on how to diffuse them before they end up causing you more trouble than you would like.

1.      Absenteeism and Tardiness. When an employee misses work, it not only costs money but can inconvenience customers and co-workers. When it comes to issues with tardiness and absenteeism, strict policy enforcement from the get go is key. If a person can get away with something, even if they do not realize it expressly, they tend to do that thing more often. A way to ensure that this is taken seriously is by immediately talking to the employee the minute a problem is spotted, circulating company policy via e-mail and making it a part of performance reviews.

2.      Lack of Communication. It can cause problems if employees from different departments are not keeping one another in the loop, whether it be intentionally or because of a lack of a proper platform to keep everyone in on what is going on with certain projects and the like. A good way to remedy this is to instill a checks and balances system – peer reviews, a necessary filing of a checklist from one co-worker to another department before continuance is allowed on a project can keep office dynamics fluid.

3.      Misuse of Technology. The technology influx of this age – whether it be smart phones, web access, iPads, what-have-you – make it hard for anyone to stay focused. This is true in the workplace just as it is true in all other aspects of life. To keep this from being a problem in your office, electronic monitoring of internet access (flags on certain types of website, for instance) can be a deterrent as well as a 3 strike system. If you’re caught texting so many times, penalties can be afforded.

4.      Attitude. Some people find a lot of ways to bring attitude to their work, and sometimes it isn’t even intentional. This can be claiming that certain tasks aren’t a part of their “job description” as a way of getting out of work that they find menial or uninteresting to being unwilling to interact with their co-workers in a cordial manner. The best way to address attitude is to immediately talk to the employee directly – if someone is showing negativity in their work life, there is usually an underlying cause that they are trying to hide. Communication is key and it is likely easy to resolve such situations just by speaking to an employee about problems before taking further action.

5.      Poor time management. The internet, cell phones, co-workers, phone calls, break times: the list of reasons an employee can lose focus is immense. Make sure they know that their work is being monitored – if their job is to call forty people a day about your product, keep call logs. You can let them know they are being monitored directly or in more subtle ways, such as praising them when they get over that set number of calls so that they realize you know their numbers.

 To stay at the edge of issues on HR and staffing, be sure to subscribe to the Human Capital Supply Chain Blog.

Five Frustrating Employee Habits is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

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After attending the HR Thought Leadership conference in Atlantic City in June, I came away with a bunch of insights from attendees and other speakers about the Future of Human Capital Supply Chain Software.  I heard from a number of corporate HR executives that there is a HUGE market globally for the “replacement” of first generation 1.0 Talent Management systems over the next few years. This is being driven by the explosion of Web 2.0 technologies and the dis-satisfaction that many corporate HR users have with their “over-sold” current 1.0 talent management solutions. 

In general, the Top 5 Future Capabilites Include:

1) ”User-Defined” systems that can be easily configured by the user, without the expensive need to redesign old customizations.

2) “Consumer Driven” solutions that are vastly more User Friendly and better reflect the user experience of using Google.

3) “SaaS Cloud Computing” solutions that are rented by the month with much easier termination clauses.

4) “Perpetual Beta” software where “Upgrades” become obsolete, because your software is automatically updated every night with bug fixes and new features.

5) “Interactional” solutions where “batches” become obsolete and “work flow” changes are easy and continual.

In addition to these General statements about the Future of HCSC software, there were a few more specific directions discussed:

1) HCSC Software will become a tightly integrated solution from a single vendor that will combine Enterprise Software + Moblie Apps + Web 2.0 Applications.

2) The “Gamification” of HCSC software will begin as younger user demand more of a PS3 or Wii interface device for their Talent Management systems.

3) Expanded use of “Video Interviews” with the new streaming technologies, bigger bandwith and the launch of the iPhone 4 and the iPad.

4) Much better “Scheduling” capabilities through the use of mobile devices and products such as Timebridge and the new auto appointment matching capabilites of Outlook.

5) Better “Expense” management with products such as Expense Cloud, Better “Reference” checking with Checkster and Better “Interconnections” with products such as Jobvite.

6) A complete “Supply Chain” environment that connects your HRIS + ATS + CRM into a single system from a single vendor.

The point of all these predictions is to give our Blog readers a reason to sit down with their current technology vendors and understand “WHEN” they will be receiving these new features and intergrations.  If your vendor does not have “Feature Road Map”, it may be time to find a new vendor that does!!

Future of HCSC Software is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

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Can you believe that the holidays are weeks behind us?  It’s once again safe to brave the malls to use those gift cards and return those unwanted items that were given to us.

That’s why I received a chuckle and a dose of reality when reading Tim Sackett’s blog on Workforce Management. Tim writes about the “HR gifts” he’d like to return, which include many of the staples, no pun intended, of the corporate world. Many of the practices that have been ingrained in our minds and processes now seem antiquated.

Sackett’s blog also made me reflect on ways some of the corporations where I worked in the past had to continuously change the ways they ran their business or they would become as useful as my Atari 5200 Super System in today’s Wii world.  “Corporate Presents” are given for a reason. But just like using the same presentation in public speaking engagements, without tailoring items to the needs of the audience, you might as well be giving everyone that same block of fruitcake. *Disclaimer: I love fruitcake, but I know it doesn’t have mass appeal.

The points Sackett makes are clear. What may have worked in the corporate world in the past may not be relevant in the here-and-now. let alone in the future. Think about it. If you mentioned “social media” around the water cooler 20 years ago, your coworkers probably thought you were talking about some kind of hippie TV program.  Today, how would the world function without a status update?

Corporate leaders who can react quickly to market changes are strategically positioned to hire the best and most qualified people, and retain them.  As talent changes, so does their needs. In his book, ‘Innovative Reward Systems For The Changing Workplace’, Thomas B. Wilson discusses making corporate recognition strategic and special.  Wilson further explains how compensation plans usually are complex to set up and that there is a delay in the recognition to reinforce good habits. But encouraging and reinforcing good habits in a timely and meaningful manner may not be as easy to operate effectively.  There’s always a risk of implementing a innovative reward system, but not having one at all will only ensure high turnover and low employee satisfaction. It comes down to having a good plan.

Managing your processes, technologies and organizational roles is all about change, and while it is a big commitment, the potential for big returns are the rewards for those who learn the lessons from the past.  And as corporations get their arms around their human capital spending and factor in the value of implementing a human capital supply chain, the cost of HR Gifts from the Ghost of Christmas Future must always be present.

I wonder how much I can get for this Atari 5200 to put towards a Wii?

The Art of Returning Gifts is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

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