Your business needs to catch up and bring social media measures into the workplace to identify and reward contributors and thought leaders in a dynamic, democratic and systemised way.
Social media has taken the world by storm. The intrinsic truth and honesty of social networks is reinforced every day around the world. But businesses have been slow to bring this phenomenon into the work place. Instead we’re stuck with power centric hierarchical structures with disproportionate rewards that are not connected with outstanding contributions made every day.
Small businesses are tied to the dominant simple hierarchy due to the A-type personalities of their entrepreneurial leaders. Mid size companies are focussing on flattening their organisational structures by implementing matrix structures. Mega companies have implemented flattened matrix structures, but struggle to identify and develop talent. All sizes of organisation need to look beyond the formal structures to develop democratised reward systems. Rewards need to be truly dynamic and able to deliver the recognition in a timely basis, maybe even weekly.
Multi source feedback systems such as 360 degree are cumbersome, costly and time consuming. If implemented fully (typically they are not, as after the first painful endeavour they die a slow death) the outcomes are as outdated and plodding as the organisations that implement them.
Social media measurement sites such as Klout.com measure the “influence based on your ability to drive action”. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure:
- True Reach: How many people you influence
- Amplification: How much you influence them
- Network Impact: The influence of your network
This type of measure needs to be brought into the work place to develop the knowledge economy and to bring the value of thought leadership through contribution to intranets, internal wikis, industry blogs, and document development.
Individuals are will not be forced to contribute ‘likes’ or ‘dislikes’ of others works, just as Facebook does not ‘require’ this feedback. But people will be encouraged to contribute as the measurement system will be linked to monthly or weekly rewards that significantly reflect the value people are contributing to the business. The pay model will be systematically adjusted and normalised to keep within the affordability function of the organisation. The affordability parameters are set annually and do not require regular monitoring.
Influence measurement would be contributed online, but may be a response to offline activities such as executive staff addresses, announcements of initiatives, or simple meet and greet activities. The items being assessed would cover a range of balanced scorecard factors tailored to the individual industry requirements. The overall effectiveness of the system would be continually monitored to ensure procedural justice and to communicate what is happening with activity and rewards to assure the perception of fairness by all, or at least most staff. As a balanced scorecard is being used, assessment is open to customers and suppliers that are outside the organisation.
The beauty of this system is the lack of intervention by mediators that may impose individual prejudices and promote in their own image or indulge in self-fulfilling prophecies.
Improved recognition and reward, particularly relevant for the gen-y staff that will be motivated to participate and build strength in building medium and large organisations for tomorrow. All staff will share and build knowledge and spark each others thinking. The brilliance of our staff will not be left on the anonymous blogs and chat rooms of the private network.
The democratic nature of providing input into the reward process will break down the barriers that prevent the powerful yet unassertive majority from taking the lead.
In your organisations start identifying who has contributed documents. Celebrate these contributors. Identify thought leaders. Implement document management systems for knowledge sharing. Implement wiki structures and blogs in the work place. Bring facebook into the office. Then start systematically measuring and rewarding your thought leaders and influencers.
Klout website http://www.klout.com/home
On the surface it sounds interesting but the real issue is in how we use social media. I don't think we can assume that ' Every time you create content or engage you influence others', unless we include distract, interrupt and annoy in the definition of 'influence'! The impact of the content or engagement is what counts, the action and results that derive from it and I am not sure how that is captured and fed back, is accurate & relevant. I frequently 'like' stuff but so what, I do nothing with it. With social media its easy to create content and publish but engagement and influence are not easy to define or make happen in any environment. I am to be convinced that social media as it stands today is capable of doing this and I can't see anything on Klout that addresses the quality of content and dialogue rather than the size of the personal network and the volume of interactions. It is an area worth further thought and I am being sceptical, as is my wont!
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Perhaps there should be a little more of not identifying contributors and thought leaders?
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Very good concept. It is contemporary and can be tried for achieving goals.
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