One of the most accepted social platforms from a business standpoint is LinkedIn.  If you’re new to social or not familiar with LinkedIn, here are a few facts from the site:

• The site officially launched on May 5, 2003. At the end of the first month in operation, LinkedIn had a total of 4,500 members in the network.
• As of March 31, 2012, LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with 161 million members in over 200 countries and territories.
• As of March 31, 2012 (the end of the first quarter), professionals are signing up to join LinkedIn at a rate of approximately two new members per second.
• The company is publicly held and has a diversified business model with revenues coming from hiring solutions, marketing solutions and premium subscriptions.

Having a tool that has free and low-cost options for businesses that also has the reach of LinkedIn makes it a platform that your HR team should seriously consider using.  Many people I talk to think LinkedIn is primarily for job seekers or recruiters but there are so many other ways to use the site.  I use it to search for information and articles, I do research on companies, I find information about people I am networking with and I also use the Groups feature to stay in close contact with other professionals with similar interests.  One of these interests is staying in contact with colleagues from my former employers.  This brings me to today’s tip:

Create a LinkedIn Alumni group

 A LinkedIn alumni group is a way to drive interaction.  As HR professionals we know that boomerang employees are on the rise because as people leave organizations they find that they may miss the culture of the organization they left and decide to return in just a few short years.  Having an Alumni group where they can come back regularly and receive company news updates, hear about new client projects, connect with their former colleagues, see your job openings and be given access to special perks and discounts your company may offer are just a few ways to keep them connected.  They can also easily engage in conversation on the alumni group site.

How To Create An Alumni Group on LinkedIn

• First, watch the video on LinkedIn to learn how to Start a Conversation In A LinkedIn Group.
• From the LinkedIn home page, click the Groups tab
• Click Create a Group
• Fill in all information about the company including a logo, link to the website, information about your company
• Who will be allowed to access the group

Be sure to link the group to the company Twitter account as well.  Now you’re ready to get started sharing information.  You may be the person responsible for maintaining the alumni group or you may assign it to someone on your team.  Either way, make sure that you encourage and ALL members of your team as well as current employees to participate in the discussions on the alumni group.

The last, and most important piece of advice is to invite employees who are leaving your organizaiton to join the group.  This will reinforce that leaving a company does not have to be a bad experience.  You send an important message that they are part of the culture and will remain a welcome part of the company.  You never know when they will return, when they will steer future business your way or will refer friends to you.

My first suggestion is to tweet your jobs.  It’s becoming common for companies today to have a company Twitter account.  Make sure that at a minimum, your recruiters are sharing their job openings on Twitter. But Twitter is not just about posting jobs like a job board.   Recruiters and HR pros should also tweet reasons candidates would want to work at your company, share awards or recognition the company has received and in general, any positive messages about the organization.

If you’re not on Twitter:

• Go to http://Twitter.com and open an account.  It’s easy to get started and Twitter now has easy steps to walk you through the process of creating your profile and following a few people.
• Once signed up for Twitter, go to the search box and type in words related to your business or industry.  It will bring up people related to that industry.  Start    following people.  The only way to begin getting people to follow you (which you’ll need later) is by following them.
• Take an online Twitter tutorial to gain understanding of how to begin to use the tool.  Twitter provides a good tutorial and you can also search for videos on YouTube that give good demonstration on how to use Twitter.

 If you have a Twitter account for your company or your recruiting team:

•  Compose the tweet.  Now that you are using Twitter, compose a tweet that suscinctly describes keywords about the job.  Be sure to include a shortened link to the job on your career website.  An example would be “Charlotte manufacturer hiring Director of IT. Relo available. http://ht.ly/aEbSs #Charlotte #IT #Jobs“.  You can see that it describes the location, type of company, role and gives a bit of information on relocation.  It includes a shortened version of the link and a few hashtags to help the tweet reach more people.
• Use hashtags.  In the example above, you can see I included three word “tags”  that will help the job show up in searches on Twitter.  Since it is located in Charlotte, I chose that as a search I would want the tweet to appear.  I also chose IT and jobs since there are people who run searches looking for IT jobs.    For more information on what a hashtag is and how to use it, click here.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with leaders from Pinstripe Talent about something they are passionate about…. a talent mindset.  

As a Human Resource leader, one of the key roles I occupy is that of helping shape and set the way the organization approaches talent. It’s our company talent mindset.  The same goes for me personally as well as all the other leaders in the organization.  Since “talent” is not a commodity, recruiting and retaining talented, skilled employees is everyone’s job. In order to be successful, you have to have a talent mindset so that you understand what motivates people to stay and what makes them feel valued.

Pinstripe is sharing their ideas about talent and having a talent mindset.  I was fortunate to hear a presentation by Angela Hills, Executive Vice President from Pinstripe at Talent Net Live.  Angela then sat down to answer some of my questions about a talent mindset and I’ll be sharing those here with you in a two-part series.

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What is one thing an individual can do to help a fellow leader identify his/her talent mindset?

Well, one thing? Ask the question. Tell people what your Talent Mindset is and ask others to share theirs. Ask your CEO or leadership how they approach talent. Ask them what they are most proud of when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent. Ask them what motivates them and why they stay? Ask them what their top talent priorities are. Their answers will clue you in to which Talent
Mindset drives them, but it will also get Talent on their radar by talking about it. You’ll get them thinking and you might even influence them to focus on it more, just by getting them to talk about it!

What are a few of the benefits of knowing your talent mindset and potentially the talent mindset of your team or colleagues?

More than anything, I think it helps you to focus on what you do best.   Knowing your core approach to talent can help you realize why you’re so good at certain things and what others value most about it. It affirms the way you typically approach things. It can also highlight areas you may want to focus on (i.e. maybe you review the summary of another Talent Mindset and really wish you were more like that….), but more than anything, it will help you do more of what you do best.

Knowing the Talent Mindset of your entire team can be very useful. Staffing a project with a variety of Talent Mindsets ensures that you’re looking at an issue from multiple angles. It can also spur conversation and as noted above, I’m a firm believer that the more we talk about something, the more it is on our minds, and then the more it shapes our behavior. Talking more about talent should lead to colleagues focusing more on talent and that is good for business!

*Stay tuned for more discussion about Talent Mindset.   Thank you to Angela Hills, Pinstripe Talent and Talent Net Live for starting the discussion. In the meantime, do you have discussions with your leaders or team about their approach to talent?  Share with me in the comments.

Should I learn about social platforms? 

The answer is a layered one, the first of which is easy.  Yes, as a CHRO, you should know about social platforms.  In reality, you do not need to be an expert, you just need to become and advocate and champion.  You need to be willing to hire HR and marketing professionals who know the intricacies of how to use social tools and the reasons behind using them.  You need to have an understanding of the value that is becoming more apparent as various sites enhance and refine their social services and offerings.  The reality is you need to be open to social because it is no longer a trend or an option, it is a valuable way to do business.

What are the top reasons CHRO’s need to embrace social?  

It’s a communication catalyst-  Being involved in social media platforms is a way to be involved in the conversation that is happening about your organization.  It is your way to have a real-time view of what employees, candidates and customers are saying about your brand. Leaders have struggled for years to get these same groups of people to give feedback via survey and now you can obtain this information on a regular basis online.

For collaboration and the wisdom of crowds-  Using the wisdom of crowds and achieving shared outcomes has to be one of the best reasons to get involved online.  Long gone are the days of only pushing information out to various groups of people.  Today, it’s about the conversation and the ideas shared both ways.  Social platforms are a way for you as the CHRO to not only be part of this conversation but to LEAD  and give direction to the conversation.  Additionally, capturing the ideas and expertise of a group of people for minimal cost and at increasingly faster speeds is the best benefit of crowd-sourcing  information for your organization.

To know thy competition-  Whether you are the CHRO of a large, global organization or a small business, one of the key components of running a business is knowing what the competition is doing.  Social platforms are  a perfect way to aid in monitoring.  Not only that, you may see what they are doing and have an idea of how to do it better, so it becomes a way of taking best practices and ramping them up a notch.  You can also see what their employees, candidates and customers are saying about them.  Believe me, if your organization is not doing this, your competition is likely already monitoring you and determining how to stay ahead in the game.

There are many more reasons and benefits for the CHRO to become a knowledgeable advocate of social media platforms.  If you were speaking with your CHRO, what reasons would you give them and why?  Share with us in the comments.

How Social Tools Can Empower A Global Organization

We’ll cover ways platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other sites may be viewed as a distractions for employees.  However, as organizations continue to strive to work more efficiently with fewer resources, social networking is playing an increasingly important role.  Whether it’s idea generation, discovery or collaborating with the external and internal ecosystem of partners and suppliers, it is a mechanism that organizations will need to decide whether to embrace or be passed by.  We’re hoping to generate considerable discussion around this topic.

In existence since 1916, The Conference Board is a global, independent business membership and research association working in the public interest. They help their member companies by providing research and understanding around four key areas-  Economy, Markets & Value Creation; Human Capital; Corporate Leadership; High-Performing Organizations.  This enables the companies to have a trusted resource to provide the insight needed to make business decisions.  They also provide quality conferences and leadership experiences.

Steve and I hope you’ll join us in New York, NY on November 15- 16, 2011 for two full days of sessions.  There will be tracks on HR Strategies and Issues, HR Management and Process and one on Talent and Leadership.  You can join the Conference on LinkedIn, using the following link: Senior HR Executive Conference on LinkedIn or on Facebook, using the following link: Senior HR Executive Conference on facebook.