The corporate portal should be, firstly, useful for work, and secondly, it should be interesting for employees. Meanwhile, having deployed the necessary functionality to provide the first, many companies underestimate the need for the second component. With the introduction of social networking technologies for corporate needs, organizations have fundamentally new opportunities for development.
The development of modern technologies has led to a real revolution in the field of working with corporate information. As you know, Professor Andrew McAfee of Harvard Business School, the author of the concept and concept of Enterprise 2.0, originally defined the concept as "the use of new social software platforms within companies or between companies and their partners and customers." McAfee noted that such tools create numerous, often new connections between employees and various workgroups in a company. These connections foster the dissemination of corporate knowledge and expertise through “cross-pollination” that creates real business benefits for the wave.
Today, the trend of transition from a “community of readers” to a “community of writers” is vividly and vividly manifested not only on the Internet (in blogs, forums and networks), but also in the corporate environment. Therefore, the role of the portal is growing as a point of attraction for socially and business-active employees. Those companies that, on the one hand, create a convenient platform for communication on the portal, and on the other, stimulate employees there to communicate on professional topics, can get very interesting and useful results for themselves.
However, the structuring of information on the portal is often organized in the form of a multi-tiered "cabinet" with "drawers" -sections where certain documents are stacked and where it is not so easy to find them. It is very difficult to exchange information in this form: it can be found, but it will not be possible to pass it on to colleagues, discuss it, change it.
“As soon as we start thinking about how to increase the utilization rate of corporate information, we come to social networking technologies: users not only consume information, but can also comment on it, get feedback,” says Viktor Komar, director of the integration solutions department at IBS. “This is how we can make information work. For those companies that have been using the standard functionality of the corporate portal for a long time and successfully, it makes sense to take a closer look at the new opportunities for organizing employee interaction. "
Instant messaging and constant presence in the virtual information corporate environment is the most important tool for operational communications, - confirms 1C-Bitrix CEO Sergei Ryzhikov. - Intracorporate social network (personal blogs, live feed, microblogging) is a mirror of the company, where people and their relationships, the structure of the company with all its efficiency and suboptimality are reflected with precision to the smallest detail.
Solutions for the organization of corporate social networks are becoming more and more in demand for purely practical reasons of management. Companies are becoming more and more aware that the most significant competencies of employees lie in the field of "tacit knowledge". Implicit knowledge is in the heads of employees, as opposed to explicit - documented on paper, in the form of files or data in various information systems. Analysts estimate that typically the ratio of tacit to explicit knowledge in an organization is about 80 to 20.
“An organization that strives for successful development needs to encourage employees to put on the corporate portal or any other resource of the company at least some part of the knowledge that is only in their heads,” says Irina Maksimets, Head of the Software Department of SITRONICS Information Technologies in Russia. “Corporate social networks with the support of internal informal technologies for working with information is one of the most effective tools for achieving this goal.”
“Thanks to the activity of our employees,” Viktor Komar continues the topic, “the portal creates the so-called UGC (user-generated content), which is the main element for both the corporate social network and the knowledge management system. It is clear that the sites within the portal will mainly be grouped according to professionalism - similar to how communities of interest are created on the Internet: lawyers will communicate with lawyers, and technologists - with technologists. For example, one of the largest holding companies is implementing a global program for the transformation of accounting. And the accountants of several dozen enterprises of the holding, scattered throughout the country, really need a platform to discuss their problems, exchange experience, and generate solutions. Where can they do it? Naturally, on the portal - and best of all on a site specially designated for these purposes inside it. "
In particular, portal technologies make it possible to create an educational social network based on a corporate portal, where specialists discuss important topics, give advice and train newcomers, create documents and suggest ideas. In fact, employees create and form a community of like-minded people and professionals. The solution to this problem allows them to create value for the company, "charge" newcomers and pull less active employees to participate in corporate team events. In addition, according to Irina Maksimets, the portal can become an indispensable tool for implementing the strategy of the entire corporation or its transition to a new branding program.
The correct use of the proposed technologies of the corporate portal helps companies to maintain their uniqueness and not lose their value in the market.
The capabilities of corporate social networks are complemented by the fact that modern platforms have tools for transparent integration of the desktop and user applications with the portal. For example, a person directly from Word can publish a version of a document, and it becomes available to other users. And progress in search technologies (tagging, keywords, typing, voice search), the possibility of end-to-end search across various sources, including taking into account the level of access that the portal provides to users, make it possible to make any content easily accessible.
Well forgotten old
Tools for creating internal social networks and collaboration are included in almost all modern developed technologies, software lines of large ECM vendors, such as, for example, IBM, Documentum or Microsoft. In addition, there are a large number of specialized solutions on the market, tailored specifically for the corporate segment.
Konstantin Zhukov notes: “The Enterprise 2.0 concept and its Wiki, Blogs and mash-up applications continue to gain popularity. I would like to note that the new version of SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3 widely supports all these modern trends. "
The organization and operation of internal corporate social networks is similar to open ones. In them, each user also fills out his profile, indicates competencies, interests, goals, blogs, establishes connections with colleagues. At the same time, groups of people who are interested in certain things can form freely, on the basis of self-organization. An important factor in this is the visualization of this entire economy and the quick finding of the necessary information within the corporate network. Ideally, the larger the company, the more in demand these technologies are in it.
However, it is necessary to understand that the perception by some people of the term "social network" as something supernova and the very latest is incorrect, - recalls Dmitry Romanov, director of information management technologies development at IT Co.. - In fact, a social network is a set of interactions / relationships between different people that has existed since the emergence of a person as a biological species. And this topic has been actively studied by sociologists since the 1920s and 1930s. Therefore, we can say with absolute confidence that relationships within a social network exist always and everywhere, in any organization and are an integral part of any social structure. At present, it is only a question of adding another channel of communication between people to existing and new social networks with the help of modern technologies, which allows all information of interactions to be made visible.
Sergei Ryzhikov advises to develop a corporate social network under the motto “His example is science to others”: in order to popularize a new tool, it is very important that managers are among the first to post messages on their blogs.
It is advisable to define corporate regulations as soon as possible, which determines that company orders, current information that is of interest to employees (for example, about bonuses) are published only on the corporate portal. It is necessary to transfer documents there from the file server as soon as possible.
However, not all developers of portal solutions are supporters of the idea of creating their own corporate social networks in organizations. Global networks like Facebook are already bringing together employees of the same company, providing them with the necessary opportunities for communication and socialization.
“It will be more logical and more efficient to accurately implement and encapsulate these networks in a corporate portal, ensuring, of course, the required level of data confidentiality and security,” advises Artak Oganesyan, Deputy General Director of EPAM Systems for Business Development and Customer Relations. - Such a “splicing” will allow employees to communicate in the usual social network, will provide an opportunity to increase the creative and team spirit of their work - by organizing forums, stimulating discussion of ideas and tasks, supporting joint initiatives, and so on. In fact, it will be another tool for feedback (or, better to say, bi-directional) communication between the company represented by its leaders at various levels and employees. "
Mobile, cloud, innovative
With the development of mobile devices (including tablets), remote access to corporate data will be more and more in demand. From this point of view, it is worth noting the active development of the mobile direction of portal technologies, their support for working with mobile devices of various formats and platforms, and the associated high expectations of customers regarding the availability of portal solutions through mobile devices. The portal is becoming a single access window and a convenient tool for remote employees: many portal solutions already have an adapted interface for display on mobile devices.
“I think that portals should develop towards increasing mobility,” says Artak Hovhannisyan. - Already, the availability of corporate mail, instant messaging and social networks on smartphones, netbooks and tablets allows employees to constantly be in the information space of the organization. By opening access through such mobile devices to the rest of the portal functions (to corporate information systems, knowledge bases), the company will ensure continuous communication with its personnel and their constant involvement in work processes. So theoretically (in terms of technology) an employee will have no obstacles to live all 24 hours a day at work, albeit “virtually”: the opportunity to “work hard” will be limited only by a reasonable time frame that everyone can set for themselves myself".
Developments of special applications and interfaces for portal services appear to work on the most popular mobile devices, in particular on the iPad.
With the help of such solutions, it is possible to display data from decision support systems, corporate management and analytics systems, monitoring systems on a mobile device in real time, - comments Viktor Komar. - The head of the company, regardless of where he is, with one touch receives on the screen of his mobile device operational data on sales, business analytics, configured for him KPI, and all this quickly, in a beautiful and visual form. He can immediately take the necessary management decision. Such solutions at the junction of mobile platforms, portal technologies and corporate applications are more and more in demand, they allow you to always keep your finger on the pulse and manage the company very quickly in any situation.
Since in many companies the corporate portal already implements the capabilities of remote access, for employees to work with it from home or during a business trip, the next step in its development can be the organization of interaction with external partners, counterparties, and contractors. There are no technical obstacles and problems to create a special partner zone on the basis of the portal and provide access to up-to-date reference books, price lists and other necessary information, to implement the services necessary for partners there.
Dmitry Romanov advises paying attention to Social Network Analysis technologies, which allow visualizing and analyzing internal social interactions in a company. With their help, you can find informal communities of people, identify formal and informal leaders, see how interactions are arranged within and between communities. Technology also makes it possible to analyze how different communication channels are used. Their use makes it possible to really extract a lot of value from the existing picture.
“The fact is that before all these processes were invisible for a long time,” explains Dmitry Romanov. - People communicated with each other and sent, at best, paper documents; this interaction was lost and the big picture was difficult, if not impossible, to trace. Now, almost all types of communication between people leave traces. And software products of the Social Network Analysis class just allow this information to be observed, made visible, analyzed and used to improve work efficiency. "
In the near future, we can expect the use of the portal's capabilities for visualizing data in a spatial dimension, building specialized geoinformation services on its basis, which may be relevant for transport and logistics companies.
Konstantin Zhukov predicts the development of portal technologies in the "clouds". For small and medium-sized companies, this will allow them to use all the advantages of portal solutions without deploying them at their enterprise and without worrying about supporting and maintaining the solution.
Interestingly, according to Sergei Ryzhikov, the segment of video conferencing and IP-telephony is developing: “We expect big changes and an increase in demand in this segment: these technologies allow an organization to do more in less time and increase the efficiency of individual employees and the company as a whole.”
Portal technologies are a "klondike" of new opportunities for a company. Any organization has a lot of interesting data and information. Before the development of portal technologies, there were no interfaces or platforms to find and make available this data. Finding and showing them is the main purpose of the portal. For example, if the company has a document management system, you can do a simple thing - display information on the portal about how many inconsistent documents are "hanging" on which employee, or, for example, publish the performance indicators of departments (you get such kind of online "Boards of honor").
“This information will be of interest to many; there will be an element of competition, perhaps, labor productivity will increase, - believes Viktor Komar. - There is a lot of such data in any company, just not everyone knows how to use it yet. And to do this, you just need to give people access to them, to enable them to compare this data with others. Then users will go to the corporate portal, write to the corporate forum, participate in discussions, ask questions to the management. And the management can hold online and offline meetings. A two-way communication portal is a good tool to close the distance between management and employees. The management sees what problems the employees are concerned about, and they, in turn, get the opportunity to communicate directly with the top management, bypassing many hierarchical levels. "
Another trend in the field of portal services is associated with the fact that companies are more likely to place individual functions of their specialized systems on the portal so that they are available to users in a convenient and understandable form. It is clear that all specialized systems have their own characteristics, their own interface, but employees whose work is not directly related to them have neither the time nor the desire to understand these systems. For them, a simple portal service offering adapted functionality is much more convenient.
The portal allows you to build even a complex business process in an understandable way and helps even an inexperienced user to walk through it step by step, - explains Viktor Komar. “This is a very convenient tool for all employees and beneficial for the company, since resources are saved through the use of a self-service scheme. Moreover, the range of integrated applications and, accordingly, the tasks solved through the portal is very wide: from ordering passes and a projector to working with SAP and analytical systems. In the latter case, the organization of access through the portal to corporate applications allows you to save on the payment of licenses for workplaces. And the more employees you need to give access to the data of a particular application, the greater the savings.
What is a corporate social network? Corporate social network 3 For personal communication with the outside world For teamwork within the company –Created specifically for business –Helps people to collaborate effectively –And companies - to develop successfully.
Corporate social network in the structure of internal communications Corporate social network 5 DIRECTIONS OF COMMUNICATION TOOLS Vertical, one-sided, top-down, one-to-many Corporate edition Corporate portal (Intranet) Electronic mailings Stands, information boards Corporate radio and TV Horizontal, one-sided, one to one Corporate mail Messengers (ICQ, Skype) Smoking room, kitchen, cooler Horizontal, vertical, versatile, many to many Corporate social network
Social knowledge base Corporate social network 7 Experts indicate their topics Readers subscribe to topics, ask questions Experts write content, answer questions Readers discuss and evaluate Experts and topics ratings are formed Documents Links News Questions and answers Ideas ... Motivation of experts using a social rating system and confessions
Expected results of implementation. Benchmarking (1) Corporate Social Network 12 McKinsey: Social Media Communication Can Improve Interaction Workers 20-25% Source: The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies, McKinsey Global Institute, July 2012
Expected results of implementation. Benchmarking (2) Measurable Benefits: Reduced costs from eliminating duplication of tasks Reduced costs from business process reorganization Cost savings in projects through improved collaboration and communication Increased employee productivity through fast communication and access to expertise Accelerated onboarding of new employees Immeasurable benefits: Improved vertical communication between employees and management Organization of an open environment for communication and preservation of discussions Strengthening drivers of success Corporate social network 13 ROI Payback period Total benefit (PV) Total cost (PV) NPV 365% 4.3 months $ $ $ Source: Forrester Research, The Total Economic Impact Of Yammer ROI over three years, risk-adjusted
Expected results of implementation. Benchmarking (3) Corporate social network 14 39% More horizontal connections 25% Faster adaptation of new employees 29% More communications with top management 34% Less time searching for experts and information 27% Less correspondence 26% Less meetings 24% Less time for business trips 27% Less duplication of tasks 32% More ideas generated internally 23% More successful tasks 32% Faster answers to questions 37% Higher collaboration productivity 30% Higher employee satisfaction Source: Jive Software, The business value of social business. Customer survey results.
Evaluation of results. Examples of KPIs Use of the system Number of active profiles Attendance: number of entries per day Connections: followers (followers) Activity: number of posts, comments, recommendations (likes) The use of topics, the speed of answering questions ... Value for business Time spent on correspondence, calls, meetings Speed of solving customer problems Number of ideas proposed by employees Revealing hidden talent pool Engagement, loyalty, motivation, turnover ... Corporate social network 15
Implementation methodology Corporate social network 16 STAGE DESCRIPTION CONCEPT Formation of a working group, including representatives of HR, IT, Marketing and other departments. Coordination of project goals and indicators of its success (KPI). Approval of a pilot launch plan. PILOT LAUNCH Creation of the first community of active users, identification of groups, interests, topics for discussion, development of typical scenarios. Seeding content. Evaluation of pilot results and deployment plan. THE SOLUTION IS TO IMPLEMENT OR NOT DEPLOYMENT Deployment of KSS for all employees and departments. Explaining the goals and objectives of the KCC to employees, training, replicating the best practices identified in the pilot project, seeding content. Employee engagement program. Integration with other systems. MANAGEMENT Monitoring the use of KSS, moderation, tracking metrics and evaluating implementation results (KPI), receiving and analyzing feedback. Development of KCC functionality and content.
Project team Corporate social network 17 Project manager Network development Community manager Business users Group leaders Experts Assistance to the project HR manager T&D manager Marketing & PR manager Technologies System administrator LDAP specialist MS SharePoint specialist Consulting Project manager Implementation consultant Instructor Developers Project curator Employees DaOffice
Success story: MTS retail network Corporate social network 18 Main goal: training new and retaining experienced sellers. Situation before launch: Turnover on average 7-10% per month Costs of hiring and training a new seller RUB 6,000. + 1 month of his work (
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Why do you need a corporate social network
Formally, a social network is an interactive website that is available for use by registered users, they fill it up on their own. At the same time, a social network is an automated software system that is used primarily for communication between users.
Is an internal portal of the corporation, registration on which is available only for employees, is one of the tools for shaping the corporate culture of the organization, and is also used to increase the level of interaction between employees and departments of the corporation.
In contrast to the use of open social networks (including corporate accounts, groups, pages, etc.), internal systems allow you to create an increased level of trust in the team, use network capital, and create conditions for distributed work on group projects within the corporation. Also in corporate social networks, discussions are held on the current state of affairs, pages of employees are opened with the ability to publish records, facts, etc.
Key features of corporate social networks
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Opportunities |
Characteristic |
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|---|---|---|
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Saving resources |
Improving the efficiency of using labor, information and time resources. |
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Reduced internal costs |
It happens by organizing web conferences, even if employees are geographically distributed, providing access to the expert knowledge and experience of professionals who work in the company. |
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Acceleration of information transfer |
Through newsletters, announcements, announcements and other features that are implemented in the software package. |
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Saving staff time |
Most of the information can be presented in the "Help" section for different departments. |
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Ability to work with an external audience |
If the possibility of presenting information to an external audience through blogs and employee accounts is implemented, the efficiency of the corporation will increase, transparency for the external target audience. |
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Effective feedback |
Problems are quickly identified, operational tasks are resolved, and management decisions are implemented. Additional clarification to employees about the decisions and policies of the company's management. |
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Strengthening team cohesion and employee engagement |
Employees get to know each other better, horizontal links between departments are expanding. The interest in the results of labor increases. Wide opportunities for interpersonal communication, team building. An element of positive live communication is introduced. |
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Personnel issues |
Search for experts among company employees, identification of a personnel reserve, organization of training and advanced training. |
At the same time, a number of disadvantages should be taken into account:
- The organizational vision is "blurred".
- The amount of time spent on discussion increases, which negatively affects the efficiency of work when solving minor issues.
- The emergence of emotional disputes over trifles and previously resolved issues.
- The emergence of informal leaders and populists in excess.
- Open - full access to all employee information, except for explicitly closed, personal data, etc. A third party user, although not able to register on such a network, can view all available information. Only personal correspondence and unpublished data remain closed.
- Closed - only employees of the corporation and a limited number of people have access to information on the social network. Usually they have only a web-based login interface, or they can be located on a corporate domain in a private section or on a subdomain.
- Mixed is the most pragmatic option for organizing a corporate social network, when information for internal and external audiences is clearly differentiated.
Anyway, corporate social network is created to improve the efficiency of the corporation's employees, form, improve the quality of services and manufactured products, develop organizational culture, optimize the interaction of departments and employees, improve the efficiency of business processes and other similar goals.
A special type of corporate social network is the company's internal network; it is distinguished by its target orientation towards a specific task: the formation and development of the company's HR-brand. In the long term, such an approach will make it possible to save on the selection of new employees, reduce staff turnover, and create a set of unique preferences (social, financial, psychological) for employees that the company provides to its employees and for which it is worth working for.
The main task of the internal social network of the corporation is to convey to employees the values of the company, the opportunities provided and create ways of interaction in the process of work.
It should be noted that this tool is primarily used by corporate HR departments, as well as HR departments, etc. At the same time, communication within the corporate internal social network goes far beyond the functions and tasks of HR services. On the other hand, such a holistic approach to the organization of internal communications in the company allows you to effectively interact with the target audience, which is the corporation's employees.
Large enterprises face the challenge of building a strong one, as information about the employer can be contradictory and not always reliable. The internal social network allows to largely form the flow of positive information about the employer among the people working there, and outside of their work they disseminate this information to potential employees through word of mouth.
The internal social network of a corporation can become a good tool for shaping the corporate culture and HR-brand of the employer.
In this case, the methodology of work will be the same as in: interaction with the target audience, the balance of values and needs, the formation of expectations from the employing company.
The target audience of the HR brand through the prism of the corporation's internal social network includes managers, managers, specialists, workers, university graduates, etc. Values and expectations are fully consistent with the concept of HR branding.
Separately, it should be noted that the internal social network can be used to promptly inform all employees about a particular event, the introduction of new standards, the launch of a business process and other important milestones in the life of the company.
It is logical that for international companies, internal social networks are becoming an even more important tool, since the divisions are located in different countries, and the time savings for disseminating important information to all employees will be significant.
Using corporate social networks in HR branding
Traditionally, it is believed that the formation of an employer brand is one of the activities of the HR or marketing departments. However, in the corporation, all divisions are more or less involved in the formation of an attractive employer brand, and it is coordinated by specialists in the formation of the employer's HR-brand, usually belonging to the HR department or marketing department. The issue of creating and managing the image in the labor market is solved with the help of technical means of communication, one of which is intracorporate social networks.
Social networks that unite people on the Internet with common interests, a desire to establish new friendships or strengthen old ones, learn a language or solve career problems have become an integral part of our life. Many companies already boast that they have been able to use these technologies for the good of the organization.
On the one hand, it is an automated social environment that allows a group of users united by a common interest to communicate, and on the other hand, it perfectly supports the strategy in the field of work with personnel.
Thanks to the ability to quickly access information, management through a corporate social network can tell employees:
- focus on new technologies and solutions with high potential;
- provide customers with innovative solutions;
- become the main strength of our company.
- Focus on the success of the company and customers.
- Innovation, value and benefit for all.
- Trust and responsibility.
The corporate social network should also repeat the individual values of the company, while opening new channels of communication, creating a unique communication environment that encourages employees to participate in discussions, exchange questions, promote ideas and evaluate events in the company. As a result, the following result is achieved: increased awareness, productivity and a sense of involvement of personnel in the mission of the organization.
The introduction of social networks and other web tools into the corporate business process is an obvious trend for any company in recent years.
Corporate social networks allow users to move from one-to-one communication to building group relationships with target audiences. It should be noted that not only company employees, but also other people interested in the affairs of the corporation want to be able to communicate with company representatives who:
- are experts on issues of interest to them;
- are specialists in the professional field they need;
- authorized to give feedback, etc.
Note that internal corporate networks allow you to attract and retain talented candidates, providing them with an environment for creativity. Today, email newsletters once a week are not enough to increase employee engagement in internal company tasks. Traditional one-way information tools in a corporation need to be replaced with videos, webinars, blogs, mobile apps, forums, etc.
Particular attention should be paid to security issues in the dissemination of information, but it must be borne in mind that building a social network is impossible without the corporation's trust in each employee and the employee's personal responsibility always and in everything.
For a large company, the following questions are important:
- intercultural understanding;
- providing equal opportunities in staff communications, for example, in a corporate social network, each employee is given the right to maintain a personal blog, or this can be done through the company's web portal;
- maintaining the balance of work and life; own social network allows the company's employees to interact with each other in a new way and not only share professional information, but also exchange personal life experience.
The presence of an appropriate corporate culture and its own social network has a positive effect on the company's image in the labor market. If a company wants to make its brand recognizable in the labor market, then it is not enough just to inform the target audience about the presence of an HR brand. To create it and to manage it in the future, it requires a multifaceted and coordinated communication plan with many potential users, listeners, viewers, etc. The work plan should take into account all the requirements for communication, both with external and internal audiences.
External audience (potential employees). Only correctly selected communication channels will allow attracting professionals and specialists capable of achieving the required business results.
Internal audience (staff working in the company). In this case, communication channels take into account not only technical capabilities for communication, but also many additional tasks: career development needs, orientation of new employees, job search in other branches, participation in personnel development programs, including through the creation of new projects.
Main results and benefits of using internal corporate social networks in the company
The main results of the implementation of a corporate social network in the company:
Effective corporate communications provide the following benefits:
- The variety of methods of interaction between personnel attracts and retains human resources and makes the company an attractive employer.
- A variety of communication tools gives employees not only confidence that they will be heard, but also a sense of belonging to the development of the company, which, in turn, has a positive effect on their productivity.
- Communication technologies are not only a kind of connection between workplaces in a company, but also a connection with the labor market. The company's staff must stand out positively in the eyes of the company's client. It may seem to some that employers inherently look the same in the presentation of potential candidates, but the company strives to convey to them how it differs from its competitors.
