How employees are responding to social media in the workplace

We asked Avi Singer, Director of OD for Undertone Networks, his thoughts on how employees are responding to social media in the workplace?

Well, this may be result of the the fact that I have worked in organizations with a relatively young employee base, but I find that the employees I work with love the use of social media in the workplace. Innovation is something that they have grown up with and appreciate the fact that their work tools mimic the tools they use in their own social lives. In the same way that they could not imagine working without email or instant messaging they are perfectly comfortable using Linkedin to enhance their personal brands and presence, using blogs as a way of sharing knowledge or even using Twitter.

The other great aspect of their comfort level with social media is their willingness to "play in the sandbox" and help us test out new tools that may, or may not, become useful in the workplace. They're not afraid to try almost anything and give frank feedback about how they feel about the tools.

I imagine that there are work environments that are not as comfortable with the use of social media as a part of the work "toolkit", but they are probably the same companies that were late email adopters or are still trying to figure out whether or not employees should be able to use IM. They need to move past their own insecurities and realize that they are only holding themselves back. The upside of embracing social media heavily outways the potential downside.

See Avi speak at http://www.iqpc.com/Event.aspx?id=178794