Social Workplace Tools

Social Workplace Tools

Social media is a fundamental change in the way we communicate with customers, businesses, friends, and coworkers. Organizations who are embracing social media in the workplace are seeing great returns as their teams are more productive, collaborative, connected, and innovative. On the Social Media Pearls Voice of America radio show on May 24th, 2012, Christine McLeod and I shared our thoughts about the Social Workplace with the host, Shirley Williams. We mentioned some specific tools. Here they are…

(If you want to learn more about the impact of a Social Workplace and how to get started, join us at Impact99 in October 2012 – take a day with leading organizations and thought leaders around Social Workplace – and you won’t regret it!)

This is an excerpt modified from my Innovative HR page, outlining a few of the many Social Workplace tools that can help HR and leaders leverage their employees’ natural inclination towards social media and enable their teams to connect, engage, and perform more effectively.

Rypple is a platform that allows managers to share responsibility for one on ones and objective tracking with employees. Both sides are reminded to meet and provide feedback. It allows peer recognition, objective setting, one on one tracking, and the possibility to share privately or publicly through the company.

Upmo is a social talent management tool that enables employees to take more ownership of their career through applying for special projects and stretch assignments, mapping their career path, and networking with the right people within the company. For more about my thoughts on Upmo, read my blog about it HERE.

 

Small Improvements is a simple platform aimed at small to mid-size businesses. It offers 4 main components: 360 reviews, performance reviews, goals and objectives, and recognition and feedback. It seems simple and easy to navigate, with the opportunity for HR to “nudge” managers who seem to be slacking in performance development.

ThoughtFarmer develops social intranets for companies. One example is MEC’s Mondo social site, where employees have created 40,000 pages of content that they collaborate on and discuss. It’s a great way to share information and news and engage employees, and Thoughtfarmer can customize to your needs and culture.

IBM’s Connections software is like the cadillac of social intranets. Everyone has a personal profile that outlines their career history, talents and projects they’ve worked on. They crowd source, share files, and collaborate through wikis.

Yammer is another great tool to enable social interaction and collaboration in an organization. You can start a free account, invite people to an internal (e.g. within your company) or external network. You can collaborate and share files, tag conversations so that you can find them later by topic, post questions, polls and events, and recognize team members with badges and personal messages. Yammer is continuing to add APIs to other technology, including Upmo, and is a great alternative.