A framework is needed to make an effective community in an organization, a framework which engages the whole organization as a community without ranks and allows a free flow of information building on interpersonal relationship and hence trust.
“Bob is associated with XYZ organization for almost four years. Every morning he walks with a frown, punches his card and runs quickly through his Boss’s Cabin. Bob is working in accounting department and usually peeps through door of meeting room when media division is in discussion. Bob is a Major in strategic media marketing and has a passion for Media marketing , when he joined the organisation he had applied for a media marketing role but since Bill in accounting division was on Hawaiian holiday Bob started to look after Accounting . Since he is good at numbers too “numbers is all he has now”. Bob is a god-fearing and boss-fearing person who won’t say a word to Senior Managers. All these years he was hoping someday someone in organization will know about his real capabilities and Bob will crack the first billion dollar deal for his company. Every morning at 11 am Bob is found near Coffee vending machine where some fellows meet over a cup of coffee, it is the coolest source of gossip or company information. Today when Bob came to office he got more than his share of surprises .While punching his card he saw a pumpkin Logo with his company’s name on it. While the usual peeping through Meeting room he saw Mike – his batch mate in college. A mail in the inbox tells about the internal branding initiative the new “pumpkin” logo and new shared values which will be followed effective today. Coffee gang was talking about Mike - the wonder boy who has joined as senior manager media marketing, filling up the position which was vacant for last 3 months. Disgruntled Bob is gazing at his screen and clicking at Job hunting site .
As organizations are expanding and businesses fail to understand the Human needs , this is becoming a common story for the organizations. If we point out a few fundamental problems that are existing in organizations today
- Low level of interpersonal communications resulting in
A) Low level of trust.
B) Lack of a feeling of association.
- Lacking an effective tool for mapping human capabilities.
- Ineffective communication from management.
- Minimal employee involvement in decision making.
An effective framework is needed to address some of these problems a framework which engages the whole organization as a community without ranks and allows a free flow of information building on interpersonal relationship and hence trust.
The new age Bob understands the power of social network and so should organizations. A corporate social network will make things better for Bob. While it works like a social network looks like a social network and will be fun like a social network its aim is to increase organizational effectiveness. Concept of forums that are available in organizations is boring for Bob and anonymity in internal forums makes it still worse. A real social network with full participation from employees is required.
The key features here are what an organization needs.
AURA(Assigned Use vs Rational aspiration)
This feature essentially is an effective way of mapping human capability. Each employee with his profile carries his AURA. Which tells about his Assignment percentage usage in assignment and his aspiration which should be based on certain rational parameters like education, experience others.
Having AURA of each employee will allow a better mapping of human capabilities vs aspirations in an organization.
REVOLVE (Restructuring & Enhancing Values, Organization & Leadership Via Engagement )
Values that drive the organization and leadership that drives these values largely depends on one thing in common the employees of the organization. While Values are reflections of an organizations employee, leadership is there for effectively driving these values to employees. Certain features in the social network help to implement the REVOLVE philosophy.
-Revolve chart
An organization is based on a no of values .Knowing what an employee shares from these values , enables to identify the most important values . Each employee has a revolve chart where he enters his own mandate as to which values he thinks is Important in organisation.
- VOICE(Vehicle Of Internal Communication for Employees)
This allows interactive live chat session weekly/bi- weekly for discussing the changes or news in the organization with a participation of employees and the communicating entity.
Similar sessions with management of an organization make it an open culture where ideas are exchanged and heard.
-POST(Polls, Opinion & Stories for Transformation )
A medium to generate and distribute information in the form of Polls ,opinion of people and success stories from all the parts of organisation for transformation of organisation.
- Mapping of employee capabilities and organization’s goals “win-win” for all.
- Effective flow of information in an organization.
- Enhancing an Open culture, where employees are equal stakeholders and channels exist to voice out opinions.
- Making a better community by engagement & social interaction rather than a place where BOTS come & Go.
1) Understand socio-technical requirement of the proposed system.
2) Advertise the “social network” within the organization.
3) First Launch a Limited pilot with “AURA” and employee profiles.
4) Study usage patterns
5) Increase user base by various promotions
- Contests for employees.
- Some value adds for employees on the network like coupons and Cab pool facility with fellows.
6) Measure the minimum Maturity of “Social –network” via defined variables like Number of employees active & usage of different features.
7) Once minimum maturity is achieved, phase in the other innovations like REVOLVE, VOICE & POST.
8) Have a workshop on effective usage of these features.
9) Monitor the usage of individual communication and information channel.
10) Pump in Contests at regular intervals like the “VOICE of month” to increase engagement
Hi Virender,
Thanks for posting this idea. There's a lot in here. Let me just focus on one aspect here, AURA. If I read you right, this is an area where people can learn about the skills and experiences of others in the organization. I think this is actually one of the most valuable uses of a corporate social network, especially in a large or distributed company where it's likely you don't know the person who might be able to help you out. (I'm more skeptical of its ability to create a level playing field for honest, non-hierarchical discussion, since I think if it's not anonymous the same concerns about hierarchy and retribution that are found in the real world will play out here.) Adding the c.v. to the social network, and making it searchable, lets employees discover the skills of others by searching on terms related to the projects they need help with. Adding a capability that displays people with related skills in the margins would make it all the much more useful (similar to Facebook's "people you might know" block).
This is a great topic -- how to make the build a social network in an organization that really delivers and isn't just a distraction or another thing on everyone's "to do" list. I wonder if you've had any luck implementing the idea (or something like it) in organizations you've worked for or with.
-- Dave
PS. Here are a few other MIX contributions that have approached the topic from one direction or another:
The Tube: IDEO Builds a Collaboration System That Inspires through Passion
http://www.managementexchange.com/story/tube-ideo-builds-collaboration-s...
Train Managers Using A Social Networking Platform
http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/train-managers-using-social-netwo...
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