HR and Change in Corporate America

HR Insights

HR and Change in Corporate America:

Speed Up, or Get Out of the Way

by Ron Thomas on Sep 2, 2010, 10:37 AM | 0 Comments

I read an article the other day titled “Older Internet Users Take

Shine to Social Networking.” By older, they mean as in over

50, according to the study.

The Pew Research study showed that social networking usage

among this age group (people 50 and older) has nearly doubled

— from 22 percent in April 2009 to 42 percent in May 2010.

During the same period, social networking (LinkedIn, Twitter,

and Facebook) use among web users ages 50 to 64 grew by 88

percent overall, from 25 percent to 47 percent, while use by

people ages 65 and older doubled, from 13 percent to 26 percent.

At the other end of the spectrum, social networking use among users ages 18 to 29 — the so-

called Millennial Generation — grew from 76 percent to 86 percent overall.

I also came across an equally compelling conversation from a group of senior level HR

professionals talking about the primitive steps they are taking in getting on the Social Media

bandwagon. The conversations centered around getting a “handle” on Facebook and how to

“really” use LinkedIn. There was no comment, or shall we say, I did not hang around long

enough to hear their thoughts on Twitter. I walked away shaking my head.

All this reminded me of a conversation with a CIO a few months back boasting about how he

had locked down all facets of Social Media and blocked access to a number of websites at his

company. He proudly told me that HR was behind him a 1,000 percent. I have followed chat

groups conversations from other HR professionals going all out with “working” on the legalities

of Social Media in the workplace. What is going on here? Maybe I’m missing something. Why

aren’t there more conversations on how to harness this new weapon or strategy (you choose

which one)?

HR in the future: managing change

I find this sad for a number of reasons, and one has to do with our ability to adapt to change,

because one of the major functions of HR in the future will be managing change and the

expectations thereof.

With the Millenials moving into the workforce in greater numbers, there is a train wreck coming

and it will not be pretty. With the spread of technology and its use by the new workforce, how

are we to manage and use Social Media as a strategy? Recruit, communicate, trust, and engage

all spell change in connecting to the new workforce.

As I said earlier, one of HR’s main responsibilities going forward will be managing change and

expectations. With all the economic turmoil that has devastated employee engagement, profits,

innovation, and people initiatives, our whole HR mission will have to be changed. Many

organizations today are operating under an extreme amount of stress. The key to any change

initiative is your people, because that is the very thing that will directly impact the success of any

initiative.

Change is coming at warp speed

To give you an idea about how fast change is coming, it took 38 years for radio and 13 years for

TV to reach 50 million people, while it took the Internet only four years, the iPod three years,

and Facebook two years to do the same. The next Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin is in someone’s

head as I write this, and it will reach critical mass probably faster than Facebook. This is change

on a massive scale, at warp speed.

There is a total misalignment of the “new” workforce and the “old” corporate sector. There is a

demographic that is entering the workforce now, and arcane policies that limit how to reach and

engage that group (and for that matter, Gen X as well) will force companies to make changes in

their approach.

How will we reach these new workers if they are so ahead of the curve and out in the fast lane,

while the rest of us in a lot of cases are just coming up the on-ramp?

We had better embrace that age-old strategy: speed up and get out of the way, or we will be run

over.

Ron Thomas is a Principal at StrategyFocusedHR (http://strategyfocusedhr.blogspot.com/), a

strategic human resources consultancy based in New York. He has worked in senior level HR

roles with Martha Stewart Living and IBM. Ron was recently named to the Expert Advisory

Council on Talent Management Strategy at the Human Capital Institute, and was also named to

the HR Hall of Fame by HR Network of New York. Contact him at ronald-thomas@comcast.net,

or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ronald_thomas.