2015… The Year of Social HR?
Reblogged from Forbes.com
By: Jeanne Meister
In 2014, we saw organizations use social technologies for recruitment, development and engagement practices. The year to come will bring even more transformation to human resources.
The year 2015 will see the advent of what I call “the consumerization of HR,” where employees expect an “intelligent mobile user experience” to guide their access to HR resources. Employees will increasingly expect their employer to have the same user experience as when they reserve a taxi on Uber or Lyft, pay their bills on the Bank of America mobile app, or order food on Seamless or GrubHub. The mobile interface will be the employee’s primary conduit to a host of personal and business applications; putting pressure on HR to increase mobile adoption for recruitment, time and attendance, learning, goal setting and internal company newsletters. 
As a recent MIT Sloan research report showed, 57% of workers now consider ‘social business sophistication’ to be an important factor when choosing an employer. Even more noteworthy: according to the report, “Moving Beyond Marketing: Generating Social Business Value Across the Enterprise, that group of workers ranged from age 22 to 52! The use of social collaboration technologies in the workplace is no longer a Millennial request.
Indeed, today we are all adopting an increasingly ‘Millennial’ mindset. (Millennials are born between 1977-1997) According to the recent Facebook Demographics report, the fastest growing demographic on both YouTube and Google+ is 45-54 years old. This points to the increased computer literacy of an older demographic, as well as the value they put in staying up to date on modern social tools. Sloan’s and Facebook’s research suggest that we are no longer divided into a world of either digital immigrants or digital natives: Instead, we are now all digital citizens.
2015: HR Creates Social Employer Brand Playbooks
Based on workers’ increased prioritization of ‘social sophistication,’ we can expect in 2015 to see more forward-thinking HR leaders make the connection between solid social media strategies and a competitive business model. And once they recognize that link, they will find themselves compelled to improve outdated HR policies.
2015 will be the year HR departments start creating “social employer brand playbooks” to gain… Continue reading on Forbes.com
