Three Burning Questions: Social Apps in the Workplace

I’m going to try a new format where I ask three related questions and give my best take on answers for each. I want to keep my answers concise and to the point, so hopefully I won’t ramble too much and if I do, maybe I will take a little time to do some editing (but probably not). This first set of burning questions revolve around the sometimes challenging issue of getting workers to adopt social apps in the workplace.

Social apps are a mainstay in our personal lives. Our days typically start and end with some form of social media consumption, with frequent check-ins throughout the day. It’s how we stay connected to friends and family and often times people who share our interests whether we know them offline or not. However, we don’t always see these types of applications translating seamlessly to the workplace. Let’s see if we can dive into a few reasons why.

Why do companies struggle with enterprise social network adoption rates?

This question jumps straight to the heart of the matter. Many companies do not experience high adoption rates when they introduce social platforms to their workers. For those that nitpick about definitions, I’m going to define adoption rates very broadly and loosely as people using the application to some degree. I don’t care what that degree is. It can be checking in once a week and lurking around, never leaving a trace of passage. It can be posting updates and files daily. I’m even good with someone commenting ruthlessly with contrary opinions and counterpoints on an ad hoc basis. These examples all count as usage to me; therefore, they achieve adoption.

The biggest reason companies struggle with getting employees to use social networks is that employees often don’t know what it is they are supposed to use it for. This is the fault of the people that introduced it into the workplace as they didn’t do a good enough job building awareness and defining specific use cases on how it should be leveraged.

For employees to have a clear understanding of this type of tool, you have to provide them with more than generic ideas about how to use it. Tangible and specific examples applicable to different roles and employee types is required. Without it, you have basically rolled out the corporate equivalent to Facebook, and then people start to ask the next question…

Why are social tools good for the enterprise?

This is a legitimate question…for someone to ask in 2010. But this question is still being asked, especially in organizations that suffer from low adoption rates caused by poor rollouts. Social tools are good for the enterprise in a variety of ways depending on a variety of factors. The first things you need to establish are your goals. Your goals will indicate the type of benefits you should expect to achieve. I believe that top level goals fall primarily in to one of two categories: communication or collaboration.

If your goals are communication based, your social tools need to enable people to have conversations. These can be top-down, bottom-up, and peer to peer. Social networks enable omnidirectional communication and provides a high level of transparency. Creating a platform and space for open discussion across traditional hierarchical structures within the organization will help the company connect with its employees and employees to connect with their coworkers.

If your goals are collaboration based, your social tools need to be a place where work gets done. The type of work getting done depends on the organization as well as those use cases that define how the workforce should leverage the new technology. The presence of the technology itself doesn’t get you there — you have to be willing to change processes and behaviors to change the way work gets done. Creating a platform for collaboration to occur will make your workforce more productive and will result in higher quality results as ideas build upon one another and organic innovation occurs.

Both of these goals and their subsequent benefits won’t be achieved by simply telling your workforce that is what you are aiming for. You are going to have to shift the mindset of the workforce to buy in to a new way of working.

What does it take to raise digital literacy?

Digital literacy goes beyond knowing how to operate a computer and takes the concept to understanding how to use technology to function in today’s digital world. Beyond, then, the mechanics of using a smart phone or tablet, digital literacy is about comprehending new ways of interacting in a technologically advanced society and applying those behaviors in your everyday exchanges. Raising digital literacy levels within an organization is no small or easy task.

I don’t think there is a silver bullet to solving this issue, but here are a few ideas and tips that will hopefully move us in the right direction.

1. Work with existing corporate training and learning groups to establish digital technology courses; don’t just focus on the dos and don’ts but also the whys and whens
2. Create robust job aid materials that walk workers through using new technologies
3. Formally change processes and use proven change management practices to achieve successful implementation
4. Build in digital competency requirements into the hiring process
5. Pay special attention to your Executives and Managers; if they don’t know how to use social tools, they won’t advocate for their use

I believe tackling digital literacy gaps within the workforce may be the most important task in front of us. Embracing new ways of working and adapting processes to take advantage of social technologies (or any advanced technology) is directly at the crux of achieving any expected benefits and getting workers to adopt the new tools and ways of working. To get your workforce to achieve more, they must know how to operate and leverage social applications and related technologies as well as understanding why they need to.

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