How social media in the workplace can help employees and businesses

Potential loss of productivity is the main concern for businesses when it comes to not allowing social media in the workplace. A study on workplace productivity points out that employees spend about 77% of their time on social media while on the job. While you may think that companies are doing a great job by curbing social media at workplace, it is actually counterproductive.

Companies should no longer spend their time and energy on figuring out how to stop their employees from using social media. Instead, they should focus on how to make social media more productive at workplace. We have highlighted 9 ways how companies and employees can benefit from social media, provided they learn to use it right.

What companies stand to gain…

1. Sites like LinkedIn can help companies recruit the right candidates without spending a dime.
2. Top management can do professional networking with prospective clients to grow their contacts and business.
3. Companies can use social media to publicize about their events, trade shows etc. and reach out to the right audience, reducing their advertising spend.
4. During times of disaster, companies can use social media to get in touch with their displaced employees.
5. Employee retention is better in those companies that provide access to social media.
6. Companies that are active in social media enjoy higher brand perception.
7. On average, content shared by employees receives 8 times more engagement than content shared on brand channels and is 25 times more likely to be re-shared by their audience. So, companies can leverage their employees’ network to promote their products and offerings.
8. Referral and leads generated through employees have been found to convert 7 times more than any other sources.
9. Social selling through employees has opened a new revenue channel for companies.

What employees stand to gain…

1. Scrolling through Facebook and connecting with their friends and relatives help employees take a break and recharge their batteries.
2. Social media provides a channel for employees to voice out their concerns and opinions about the company and its work culture.
3. Social media provides an opportunity for prospective employees to connect with existing employees and find out more about the company and its work culture.
4. Employees who have access to social media at work are 9% more productive.
5. Since only 33% of US employees are engaged at work, social media can boost employee engagement to a huge extent.
6. Social media is not all about gossip, it can also be a great source of knowledge for employees to keep themselves abreast of industry trends.
7. Various studies have shown that employees’ decision-making capability increases significantly due to better collaboration with thought leaders.
8. A study by Pew Research Center shows that nearly 56% of US employees improved their performance within their roles due to social media.
9. Millennials, who account for much of the workforce, are happy to work in an environment that provides them unrestricted access to the outside world.

Social media is slowly but surely becoming an integral part of the corporate sector. Every organization maintains its own Twitter and other social media accounts. They also have a dedicated team to manage their social media channels. So, there is an inherent need for corporates to link their official and social media activities through their work tools. Clariti does that and more.

Clariti is a very cost-effective tool that seamlessly connects related interactions from different communication channels such as email, chat, cloud storage, social feeds, etc into one context-based Thread. That too happens automatically in real-time without your active intervention. When you receive an email or tweet, you can immediately start chatting from the email or tweet and the recipient can understand the context that you are talking about — without you having to forward the email or tweet! Later, both the email and chat transcripts are saved automatically in a Thread.

A lot of companies that have adopted user friendly policies towards social media usage by signing up for tools like Clariti at workplace have found that they are seeing increased productivity and rapid business growth due to increased employee engagement.