The importance of community moderation in social HRMS

Your HRMS can be a valuable tool when it comes to the social aspects of your business; giving employees a platform to share experiences and ideas can lead to knowledge sharing, informal collaboration and enhanced problem solving. HR has a key role to play in social HRMS to ensure that not only are company guidelines followed but also that social HRMS flourishes and brings strategic advantage to your organization. Here are key areas where HR skills and knowledge can guide community moderation.

HR sets the tone and creates a safe environment

HR is often central to social HRMS as companies are concerned that anything involving social media opens the door to employee problems and lawsuits. Social HRMS can involve employee questions to top management, these questions are often linked to business uncertainty such as mergers, divestitures and the downstream impact to 401k or benefits. Is your HR team encouraging the questions and ensuring management answers? I’ve seen some HR teams that offer the same copy and paste response to difficult questions rather than proactively providing more assurance or information. When employees see a personal response vial social HRMS they often view HR and management in a positive light.

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HR brings the soft skills and ‘people power’

Many employees use social HRMS to share ideas and connect with diverse team members around the globe. HR can take the lead to encourage informal collaboration by starting discussions or encouraging knowledgeable employees to do so. Is productivity lacking in a certain area or do you think improvements could be made to a process? HR has the power to bring attention to an issue and then to provide facilitation to the discussion when needed. HR can also highlight possible synergies and collaboration coming out of these interactions to top management who can then formally dedicate resources or teams out of the informal discussions.

Community moderation keeps social HRMS active and relevant

Employee participation is key to social HRMS to keep communication flowing and to support the generation of new ideas. A good moderator will be able to keep the conversation going to ensure that social HRMS is at the forefront of an employee’s mind when it comes to collaboration. A strength of a moderator is to see where there is interest and activity and to further support that focus and create additional buzz. An active community is a connected one so your moderation should also proactively connect employees, such as through sub-groups of employees with similar jobs or areas of company interest.

HR can guide discussions and present content to support strategic goals

Participation in social HRMS can be linked to your organization’s overall objectives. Are you seeking to attract university talent or to retain current employees? HR’s participation in your HRMS can reflect these goals, such as by highlighting recruitment drives or seeking mentors for young trainees. An employee may be more receptive to these activities when presented via this proactive medium instead of static portal pages or policies that they cannot find.

If your goal is to retain current employees, social HRMS is great at creating quick polls that ask existing employees to name their top reason that they would recommend the company to an applicant or their top benefit of employment. Annual employee surveys are insightful but sometimes abandoned due to time commitment. Pulse surveys are great to ensure that you’re on the right track and HR’s administration and moderation of them via social HRMS keeps you connected to your employees.