Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER October 31, 2016 FEATURES 15 TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO SAVE $275! TECHNOLOGY Building the social network at work Installing software is one thing — getting employees to use it is another Melissa Campeau I n mid-October, social net- working giant Facebook launched Workplace, its new at-work platform. The technology joins a long list of rivals including Slack, Yam- mer, Chatter, Hipchat and Jive, plus messaging apps for mobile workers such as Beekeeper and Zinc. "Increasing digitization and glo- balization of work is transform- ing how, when and where we col- laborate across teams and with our clients," says Karen Pelletier, Accenture's Canadian business operations and workplace solu- tions lead in Ottawa. "Digital tools will enable work to happen anywhere," she says, and help to "spark collaboration between clients and teams." Canadian employees have ce- tainly embraced social media outside of the workplace — 59 per cent of Canadians use Face- book, according to 2015 Forum Research. Given that level of comfort with personal social platforms, it's not surprising organizations have been installing social enterprise networks at a quickening pace since 2011, looking for ways to enhance engagement, collabora- tion and productivity, according to a 2015 report by Deloitte. Installing software that enables collaboration is one thing; en- couraging employees to use it is another. Many of the companies choos- ing to roll out social enterprise networks were also struggling to recruit users and advocates, ac- cording to the Deloitte report. Another 2015 study, this one by Altimeter Group, found less than half of the enterprise collabora- tion tools organizations put in place have many employees using them regularly. Suited to some businesses more than others? "Where we have seen demand for corporate social platforms is with companies that have more project management requirements," says Cissy Pau, senior consultant at Clear HR Consulting in Vancou- ver. "Say they're a tech company that's creating a new marketing system for their clients, then we have seen them using some sort of collaboration tool." "If you've got a large workforce that's dispersed and everyone's working on the same project or different aspects of the same project, I'd say a corporate social network absolutely makes sense." e larger and more spread out an organization is, the more it's going to benefit from the ability to connect virtual teams digitally with technologies, says Pelletier. But social networking tools don't have to be the exclusive domain of this type and size of organization. "Collaboration tools have the potential to benefit smaller, more localized workplaces, if used ef- fectively," she says. "We know that when employ- ees come into the office, it's now more focused on the human and emotional connection between clients and coworkers. When we wrap the physical work environ- ment around technology, it drives innovative new ways to engage everyone in a physical and virtual experience." Plenty of organizations, though, aren't convinced of the value, just yet. Only a small handful of Pau's clients are on board, she says. "ere are maybe three or four, among all our clients, who use some sort of collaboration tool." If enterprise social networks aren't ubiquitous in the workplace, the sheer number of platforms and installations an organization has to consider — for nearly every element of a business — might be partly to blame, says Pau. "An organization is going to choose the system that adds the most value, and maybe that's in manufacturing or logistics or on the accounting side," she says. "How high do HR platforms rank in the mix? ey're probably not as high as those tradition- ally considered to have a bigger impact on business. You have to make sure operations are work- ing, and also consider that maybe we should just walk to the office next door and have a conversa- tion… ere could be other ways to achieve the same goal." TECHNOLOGY > pg. 17 Large workforces benefit most by connecting digitally.

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