A How-To Guide to Corporate HR Blogging

Kudos and HUGE props to Ben Yoskovitz of Standout Jobs and Susan Burns of Talent Synchronicity for putting together this guide about blogging from a corporate HR department, or a one-(wo)man department as it may be for many of Cool Works' clients, called A Definitive Guide to Corporate HR Blogging. I highly recommend requesting this free guide from their website and reading it cover to cover. It's worth your time and energy and for those of you who have heard me speak at SHRA conferences about dabbling in social networking or blogs, here is the document you can share with your boss(es) to prove I'm right their value.

To Do List (hearkening back to Mark's legal presentations at SHRA) -

• Get the Free Guide!

That is all.

Networking Goodness

Next week is the annual Seasonal Human Resources Association (SHRA) conference, where HR managers who work for employers in the national parks or other seasonal operations will gather to talk about their year, their trials, their tribulations and other goodies about the wonderful world of HR. This year's conference happens to be in Portland, Oregon, and it's the 20th annual conference, so it should be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it for several reasons.

1. I get to see my CoolWorks.com co-worker, Patty.
2. I get to see my SHRA friends and most likely get to create another batch of fun memories.
3. I get to talk about how cool social networking is and hopefully win over a few more HR folks to the world of Web 2.0.

Now in preparation for my talk on social awareness, I have gathered information on some Cool Works employers who have thrown their hats into the social media ring and are giving the social networks a try, well, one social network, Facebook. But, hey, that's better than none of them.

The two employers I have found thus far currently use the site in slightly different ways, but they are using it.

Example #1: Holland America Tours

They have created a profile as if they were a person. It's an individual profile and they can add friends who have either worked there or are interested in working for them, post links, update their status which recently said "Holland is Recruiting & Hiring for the 2009 Summer Season." Of course they are and why shouldn't they share this with the world.

Example #2: Northstar at Tahoe



They, on the other hand, have created a group called A Good Job at Northstar at Tahoe, where employees or future employees can sign up to chat, get updates, and be a member of the group. At this point they have 431 members. Not too shabby. You have to ask to join or be asked to join, but that's just a click away.

Both concepts work and are FREE! What's better than free? Facebook is just another way to connect with their job seekers and employees. I especially like Northstar at Tahoe's approach, because they send messages to their fans often to keep them engaged, talking about housing, when the snow is going to fall, and who to contact if you have questions. They have personalized their brand and made it more fun. Nothing gets your employees more involved than by tapping into something that they are already doing.

Example #3: CoolWorks.com

And just to round out the post and share with you another Facebook option for gathering folks is to create a Page. Cool Works has done this and please feel free to join and share the CW love by becoming a fan.

Fans can upload videos, leave comments, and add photos. And you, as the page manager can also post comments/share links, add photos, add videos, create events (like job fairs) and update your fans about what's happening.

So what is holding you back from doing this? Get out there. Dip your foot in the social media pool. The water is fine.

Follow Me On Twitter

I must admit that I am in awe of bloggers like Punk Rock HR and Cheezhead, for example, who can write everyday and sometimes more than once in a day. For me, in keeping up on Staffing Center requests and the various advertising needs of clients, I am lucky to get one posted once a month sometimes twice. I suppose that's one reason I like Twitter so much. There isn't the pressure of coming up with a full post, but I can share my thoughts and goings on in a brief, sometimes thought provoking manner. And by thought provoking, I mean, trying to condense a thought to 140 characters can be challenging. Plus, I can share other blogs I've read and videos and keep up on politics and HR trends by following other people.

What's funny to me is that when I took the job at CoolWorks.com and was exposed to RSS and Google Reader, I was amazed that all I had to do was click the little orange RSS icon and magically all of the articles I wanted to read came to me. I would go to my Google Reader and spend an hour or so getting caught up. Fortunately/unfortunately, I now follow so many bloggers and news sites that it either takes me much more time than that or I end up clicking the "Mark all as read" button to be free of the guilt of not being able to stay caught up.

Again, this brings me back to Twitter.

• Twitter is short and sweet.
• Twitter is fun.
• Twitter is instant.

I can follow some of the same bloggers and news channels, but I can scan the headlines a whole lot faster to get to the nitty gritty of what I want to read. I also get to know a little bit more about the people I follow. I can tell you who the coffee drinkers are, who takes the train home, and who loves their kitties as much as me. Even better than that is the fact that when I go to my next big conference, I'll actually know people so the face to face connection will only solidify the networking relationship.

So, do you Twitter? If not, you should. Okay, well, you should at least check it out. Feel free to follow me on Twitter and get the gist of it. If I was an internal recruiter today, I would be willing to give it a try to find a new stream of applicants. Twitter is a free and quick way to expose your open jobs to a new audience and a fun way for you as the employer to show that you have a personality and are interested in being authentic and known in the social media world.

If you don't want to take my word for it, here is a video of lots of other Twitter users who LOVE Twitter. It's a bit long, but you get the idea. Give it a try. You just might like it.

Web 2.0 (Two Point Oh)

I've been saying to Bill at Cool Works that I feel a blog post coming on so here it is. In college, I would consider myself a procrastinator, "one who gets paid for crastinating" according to the B.C. cartoonist, Johnny Hart. I always got my papers in on time, but I would tend to write them the night before they were due, and usually stay up all night to do it. Mind you, I did well in school and I attribute this to my procrastinating, well, at least a little bit. Once I knew my topic, I would mull it over as they say, write a few notes as brain-childs occurred, but generally would tie it all together at the last minute. I don't necessarily recommend this method to anyone, but it always worked for me.

The topic on my brain these days is Web 2.0. I would like to state for the record that when I was an HR professional working in a HR department, I did not have time to really ponder such things. There was always some fire to put out, a file to copy, a benefits orientation to give and a million other little requests and tasks that filled my days. However, I really wish that I would've known then what I know now. Isn't that the way it often is?

First, here is a definition of Web 2.0 for you HR folks still in the trenches from Wikipedia.

Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.

Since joining Cool Works a year ago March, I have officially immersed myself in Web 2.0. I blog. I am on lots of social networks including ours, My CoolWorks, My Space, Facebook, LinkedIn, and I also participate in two wikis. And last but not least, I am now on Twitter and find it an amusing way to share whatever I'm thinking or doing at any given moment.

Now, here is a question for you. Do you use these tools? First off, do you consider them tools? I can understand and appreciate those who opine that social networks are a time suck and a major waste of time, but there are also others who have actually increased their audience and traffic, by utilizing them. Personally, I lean more toward tool than time suck, but I do try to be aware of how much time I spend on this stuff. I'm sure my husband would say way too much, but I have been making connections with old friends, others in my industry and am gaining a greater audience for Cool Works, my photography and my favorite social causes.

So why should you pay attention to Web 2.0? Well, for one, this is where the world is going. People are spending more time on-line and the younger ones out there, your future workforce, are very active on social networks and make decisions about where they will work, eat, hang out, go to school, travel, etc., by paying attention to their many friends' experiences, both good and bad, with companies, etc.

Earlier this week, I attended a brainstorming session for Washington Business Week, a local non-profit that puts on business camps for approximately 2500 high school students each summer. I was one of those lucky students back in 1989 at Central Washington University. When asked whether or not Washington Business Week should attempt to contact its alumni and maintain a relationship with them, the predominant response from the attendees of this meeting was that they would be "insane" not to. And, in fact, if they wanted to be around in 20 years for more high school students, their very sustainability depended on connecting with their alumni. Maintaining a relationship with their natural constituency was the best thing that they could do to ensure their survival and growth.

So how can you join this new web chapter?

• Create a profile on Facebook or MySpace or LinkedIn.

• Add a group for your company or a business profile or both.

• Reach out to your staff and alumni and get them to join and participate. Tap your fans!

• If you're really bold, create your own personalized social network using Ning.

• Twitter about your hiring process, job fairs, recruiting trips.

• Share upcoming events, listen to your staff, and engage in the conversation.

There really are a million ways to connect with people and move forward with the Internet and I am certainly not an expert in any of them, but I am learning more about them and myself all of the time. In future posts, I'll be more specific with things that you can do to get started, but for now, I just want to get the point across that Web 2.0 is important, it's revolutionizing how the world works and if you want your company to be around in the future, get involved sooner rather than later.