Chris Kieff started a very interesting discussion last week regarding what department should own social media. His thought was that human resources should be responsible. This post is a must read, especially the comments.
Prior to reading Chris’ post, I would have said hands down that social media belongs to marketing. But I can see the logic in his argument. If done correctly, social media has a strong corporate culture component that involves all employees. Most, if not all, initiatives that involve these two factors belong squarely with HR. Chris’ post has got me thinking…and I really can’t say right now where I sit on this issue.
But as I read through the comments, I realized there’s not a groundswell of people latching onto his idea. That really bothered me.
Actually what truly bothered me was what I read in the comments. There was a very polite dismissal of human resources. I read snippets like “ownership coming from specialists” and people “who are in sync with the corporate culture.” I couldn’t help but feel there’s some thought out there that HR shouldn’t own social media because it isn’t equipped and/or capable of directing it.
Hmmm. Not capable. No one has ever told me I’m not capable. Just because I don’t know a subject or I’m not currently using an app…doesn’t mean I can’t learn. It reminds me of a time when I worked for an airline. I was given the responsibility of managing flight attendant uniform ordering and inventory. I didn’t know anything about uniforms. In speaking with my manager, I asked, “Why me?” Her reply was, “If anyone can fix it, you can.”
So, let’s say you’re the CEO of a company who is talking about developing and implementing a social media strategy. You have to figure out who will be accountable for this new, vibrant strategy and medium. There are some departments that really don’t even figure into the conversation (like accounting and probably operations). The conversation most likely gets down to marketing and human resources.
Regardless of whether you feel social media belongs to human resources or marketing, I can’t help but think any strategic business partner wants to be an integral part of the conversation. And, I would think the CEO of any business is going to look at the projects each department is working on, the topics each department feels is important, and the willingness to take calculated risk in making an ownership decision.
Then, it comes to the day when the senior leadership team is at the table discussing who will own social media. I wonder how the conversation would go. I guess the first question would be, is human resources there?
Do you think HR can develop the company social media strategy?
If so, what makes you think they’re capable?
If not, why aren’t they capable?
What kinds of projects is HR working on that support the decision to give them social media?
Are they committed to making social media a success in our organization?
What would your executive team say? More importantly, what would HR say?
Ultimately, the decision should be centered around what’s in the best interest of the organization. It shouldn’t be about capable because everyone on your payroll should be capable.
My takeaway from Chris’ post wasn’t who will own social media – that’s just the catalyst. It’s about the capability of human resources. Are conversations about the composition and the viability of our profession sending the message that HR isn’t capable? Is it possible that HR is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? Let me know your thoughts.
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Steve Boese says
Very interesting post Sharlyn. The knee-jerk reaction I think would be that HR departments really should not ‘own’ an organization’s social media efforts, so far as a wide-ranging and complex strategy that encompasses so many parts of the organization can’t really be fit into classic corporate structures. All the functional disciplines that can fall under social media (marketing, PR, corporate comms, customer service, community relations, HR, recruiting) make it a difficult task to define ‘ownership’ in the traditional sense. Perhaps going forward a new organizational group will be formed taking the most capable (and interested) people from various existing functions to shape, plan, and execute social media initiatives. HR absolutely should be a key in all this and has a great opportunity in this area in the future.
ReviewSNAP says
HR is definitely capable. As is any other department. To me it’s not a matter of capability it’s more a matter of falling within the realm of a department’s responsibilities.
Teresa Juarez says
Certainly! I think HR is very apt to handle social networking, though they shouldn’t be entirely responsible for it.
What better department to have “in on the conversation” in the way the HR can be. It is the deptarment’s job to understand their company and to communicate to employees. I think it is an excellent assesment, though the management of social media pushes should still me handled and monitered through marketing.
Amanda says
If HR isn’t driving the company culture bus than who is? Sure, corporate communications, marketing, PR, they uphold the image of the organization, but HR hires and fires people who, well, don’t fit. Not capable? If your HR department doesn’t have its fingers on the pulse of the organization, then your organization is not advanced enough for a successful social media program. What, HR professionals are ‘ole stick in the muds, who don’t understand and/or utilize technology? Contrary! Many HR professionals are on the cutting edge of technology understanding how technology can help them do their jobs better and faster.
Intranets – HR’s responsible for upkeep.
Townhall Meetings – HR’s responsible for holding them.
Employee Satisfaction Surveys – HR’s responsible for conducting them.
HR staff is trusted with the most critical of organization information. Not capable of running social media? Give me a break. If your organization needs an HR technology-proficient Social Media consultant – I’m available!
Chris Kieff says
Sharlyn,
Thank you for extending the conversation and referencing my post. I do think there’s a definite feeling that HR doesn’t have standing in an organization that Marketing and PR often do.
My main arguement is that HR is perhaps the only group including a newly created Social Media department who stands to gain the most if Social Media is adopted by a substantial portion of the employees. I’m writing my third and final installment tomorrow. Thank you for your thoughts and participation.
Chris Kieff
hr bartender says
I totally agree that human resources should be capable of handling an organization’s social media efforts. Whether or not a company ultimately assigns ownership to HR should be driven by what’s best for the business.
What struck me about the comments on Chris’ post was that other people were implying HR isn’t capable. I walked away thinking even though I might feel that I’m capable…others might not or definitely don’t. And, how do you change that perception?
Is the issue that the ‘profession’ isn’t capable? Or maybe just a few people in it aren’t capable? Hmmm. That might merit some future discussion.
Carol Bowser says
Great post. So often it feels like HR works in a bubble and decries that it-they- aren’t taken seriously. Perhaps HR can take a page out of marketing and sales playbook and MARKET THEMSELVES so that everyone in the company KNOWS, UNDERSTANDS, and hopefully APPRECIATES what HR can and does do.
Call me someone who pokes a stick in a hornets nest, but until HR courses are required in every business school and companies educate their people about the role of HR, the profession will never reach its potential.
larryheard says
Honestly I think everyone can get this job done so it’s unfair to say that HR can’t do it, seems very swallow to me.
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Jane Perdue says
Strategic, high-performing HR is all about human capital: having the right people with the right skills at the right time with the right work environment. Many HR departments get caught up in, then trapped by, transactional work; losing sight of the transformational work inherent in what a high-performing HR group should be doing. The muck of the transactional work leads to the identity crisis that HR is having (all the post, articles re: is HR dead?) both within and inside the function. Confident, capable HR will/should figure out the transactional stuff, get it running smoothly; then grab the transformational work, including social media. Relationships are the new currency today, and a high-performing HR department is uniquely positioned, and capable, to deliver on that proposition.
Goodness, so many of my hot buttons punched in one topic!
hr bartender says
Thanks everyone for adding to the conversation. I’m excited about the interesting ideas emerging…
I wonder with the similarities between HR and Marketing if separate academic coursework is necessary (beyond employment law). Or would a principles of marketing course provide the requisite content?
Focusing on transformational work is key. Any survey I read about what keeps CEO’s up at night points to talent acquisition and retention. The question then becomes how is human resources spending their time.
If you haven’t seen it today, Brand For Talent blog had a terrific post on the “New Role in HR: A Hybrid”. The post elaborates on the HR+Marketing concept and provides a real-life example from Shell Oil Company.
dont compromise says
Sharlyn – as so often, a valuable and thought-provoking post, for which thanks for writing and posting it.
Like others here, I think the issue isn’t so much competence as appropriateness. The two are, of course, not entirely separate: across different organisations, the HR function and remit can be defined very differently – although in my own working experience (perhaps there is an element of a UK/European perspective here too?), I’m not sure I’d see HR as the home or definers of organisational culture: that seems to me to come from a broader stream of influences, including both senior and line management.
Two points strike me about the debate so far. Firstly, I get the impression that ‘social media’ is still being seen more as a broadcast medium rather than an interactive one. I think – as the number of comments that many of your own posts stimulate would seem to support – that social media is rather more in the latter camp. It’s not just about ‘getting your message out there’, it’s about interacting with existing and potential customers, industry followers and commentators and the wider world. It’s not advertising: that would be to assume that people will willing give up their time to actively choose to read your advertising. And I think a degree of realism is needed there! 🙂
Secondly, very few people seem to be talking about the audience. Given that social media is mostly textual, and speaking as someone who is fundamentally a writer, I can’t forget one ‘golden rule’ with any ‘corporate communication’: the first consideration is the audience. As a reader of other people’s blogs, it’s their ability to interest, stimulate or engage me that matters most to me, not the extent to which they are ‘on message’.
(Jakob Nielsen, as a guru of usability and audience interaction in all matter web, also popped into my head: one of the most enduring faux pas he notes is that companies write websites – and nowadays run blogs et al – with themselves in mind. As he wisely points out, you are not your own audience. As a reader of someone’s website, for instance, I’m not interested in their corporate structure, or having their products and services parcelled into blocks according to their divisional breakdown, I want to quickly and easily find the information that matters to me. The features would help too: I know marketing emphasises benefits over features, but as a buyer I’d like to think I can work out the benefits for myself. My purchasing questions are more usually ‘does it do x and does it come with y and z?)
This implies that to identify the most effective ‘owner’ of social media within an organisation, you start by identifying your audience and understanding what they want to hear/read/see. Having done that, you identify which department/individuals within the organisation are best placed to use social media to meet their needs and interact with them.
Less politely, and forgive me for the bluntness, if I want to understand an organisation’s services, products, its relationship with its customers, ‘HR’ isn’t the department I would initially think of interacting with. My instinct says the role falls across many functions – but probably mostly marketing and PR (but without the spin), and operations (I may have detailed questions, and I might prefer their responses to a salesmans). But if one outcome of the web in general, and social media in particular, is to make organisations more porous – to open them up to real-time interaction with the outside world – then social media has to be inherently cross-functional. (And audiences are media-savvy enough to know when they’re being ‘spun at’, when someone is steering the conversation back to ‘the party line’: we are wary of what – in the UK – might be referred to as ‘a politician’s answer’.)
There’s also a question of knowledge. I blog myself, and am fundamentally a writer. My internal involvement is in both marketing and PR and in a more operational role: while I ‘know our line’, I also ‘know what we do’ and have an understanding of the roles and concerns of those we want to reach and communicate with. I live in hope that the content I generate is stimulating and informative, and knowledgeable enough to be credible, relevant and interesting. But I work with colleagues from across the organisation on a daily basis, including in our social media activity.
Depending on a company’s industry sector, some HR departments and professionals might be able to do that, but I wouldn’t say that was guaranteed. (If the things your audience want to read about and discuss are areas where HR are knowledgeable then maybe you are the best people to do so, but how often is that going to be true?)
Depending on organisational structures, I’m tempted to say that ‘Client Managers’ or ‘Sales Support’ (if that role exists) are actually the most appropriate: the people closest to those you are communicating with, but not in an explicit ‘sales’ activity. (We blog, and use social media, mostly to strengthen existing relationships and build new ones: to cut to the chase, the relationships are truly beneficial when they lead to income. Your social media contacts could just phone your sales team, but they are approaching you on a less direct ‘sell me something’ basis; a less direct ‘buy this’ response seems appropriate.)
I think what I’m ultimately saying is that, at its best – by which I mean the most relevant to those reading and interacting with it – social media is a new role that draws from across the organisation. That certainly doesn’t exclude HR, but ‘who should be owning it’ is a complex question, and ‘which existing empire should this be annexed by’ (and I wish I’d thought of a nicer way of saying that!) seems to be the wrong approach to asking the question.
Thomas Bolt says
The take I got on this is a little different. I personally do not feel it is a matter of capability but a matter of sociability and/or approachability. I sat in a meeting of my fellow HR colleagues and listened to their concerns that other members of management didn’t include them in the decision making process. They felt staff believed that HR had to be “perfect”. I piped up that if HR wants to be a member of the team then get in the game. Show your worth. I told this room that if they wanted to be valued by staff they needed to bring value. I said that you can’t expect staff to treat you like people if your only interaction with them is when you terminate their friends and show up to eat their food at the staff potluck. This got great laughs but the only problem was I wasn’t joking. The fact that they thought I was kidding spokes volumes to me about a problem they had but I have yet to encounter. Social Media? Try being social first then let’s talk. Believe me I practice what I preach every day and it makes all the difference in the world.
Jon Ingham says
Sharlyn,
My perspective is that a strategic HR function won’t just want to be part of the conversation, but to own it. However, the conversation should be about social capital ie the outcome, not social media, the activity.
And I’d expect operational responsibility for this to be delegated to IT.
See: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2009/10/hrs-responsibility-for-social-capital.html
Cheers, Jon.
Steve Meyer says
Social media is a tool that adds value to everyone. The question should be how can HR “master” social media for our own use and show others how to make it a “value adding” component to their team. HR needs to master social media so that we can play to our core strengths, employee development and building corporate culture. We need to show others how this is not just a “broadcast medium” but a way start a long-term conversation with the customers, both internal and external, from which we can better gather information that adds value to our end product.
Bill K says
The article doesn’t mention what purpose in this discussion the social media is used for within a company. If it is branding and advertising, I’d say let the marketing team handle those aspects — press releases, announcements, customer feedback, etc. If it is for recruiting then shouldn’t the HR/recruiting dept./Talent Acquisition team (which is very capable in our company) use it to reach out to individuals, network, share opportunities, or other info about the company as it relates to attracting talent?
Ran says
I know that if you will, you can have the job. Well, HR would surely achieve it because a normal applicant can pass the stage.