Blogging: fosters engagement or galvanises dissent?
Melanie Stern, deputy editor of Financial Director magazine, asks whether the current vogue for intranet-run staff blogging makes for better employee-employer relationships and improved output – or a recipe for trouble
Rather than fortifying their firewalls so staff cannot spend all day poking one another on Facebook, ever more UK companies are making use of intranets to establish blog spaces for their staff to talk to each other. These blogs are being used by staff to talk about anything from changes in their pension scheme and comparing their company’s products to rival products (useful in evolving in an ever more competitive business environment) to whether they paid to download the new Radiohead album or not. Now, employee engagement pundits are wondering if social aspect is a useful tool in running a successful company too.
Paul Miller, chairman and chief executive officer of the UK’s Intranet Benchmarking Forum, says that company blogs can be a key tool in employee engagement – something companies can use to measure engagement simply by seeing what kind of activity they register. “Intranets and blogs are used to generate engagement with staff. One major UK bank noticed staff using internal blogs within their intranet to discuss changes being made to company pension policy, and noticed the active debate it generated among employees over several days. After some time, HR stepped into the blog conversation in order to correct some inaccuracies and reassure employees. This is a good example of how a relaxed approach to internal blogs can stimulate employee engagement.”
Predictably, many of the companies with busy intranet blogs are technology companies like IBM, or those taking their lead from the US. These companies tend to be more forward-looking with regards to investing time and cash in new types of computerised communications, principally because they are products the companies themselves seek to sell, or simply because they want to attract and retain young, fashionable staff with a culture of openness and dynamism in sharing ideas. Wikis (software that allows easy creation and linking of webpages) are commonly used in community and blogging websites because they allow mere mortals without technology expertise to shape blogs and can be used by companies to develop their intranets into platforms for staff to communicate and manage information effectively. These use internet and intranet programmes that are both cheap and easy for beginners to understand. Darren Strange, UK product manager for Microsoft’s 2007 Office system, is one company intranet blogger who has received considerable attention for his Office Rocker page, which gives him scope to stretch his uber-techno-geek legs – while, conveniently enough for his paymasters, also promoting their products and services in a chatty, informal way. He is one of 5,000 bloggers on Microsoft’s own platforms. But, doesn’t a behemoth like Microsoft want and need to obtain close control of such slackjawedness?
“There have been one or two occasions where I posted something that PR would rather I hadn’t, but they understand that the blog does a lot more good than harm. If I choose to disagree with the company on some point, I feel I could say that as long as I stated it was my personal view,” Microsoft’s Strange says. “Debate is better than dogma.”
The fact that employees are also using internal blogs to talk about business and employment issues, exchanging information (maybe insider information) among rank and department, raising sometimes difficult questions about strategy and products, and all in a forum plainly accessible by those higher up, is in itself a clear sign of engagement in practice. The issue now is how to shape and regulate company blogging by creating some guidelines or even wider legislation where the enforcement of normal laws on issues like confidentiality and defamation can be difficult. This has led to a throng of companies set up specifically to help corporates enter the world of intranet blogging and understand the field while legislation and protection – if someone says something untoward – is nascent and fluid.
UK companies are now able to adapt the environment to suit them. “European
countries such as Italy and France find the idea of unregulated communication unprofessional and even dangerous. Organisations in the UK apply standards of governance to such web 2.0 tools to remind staff that their use is for the employer/employee relationship,” says IBF’s Miller. “For example, all postings must be attributed to an individual, defamatory statements are not acceptable and all communications will be monitored and deleted if they compromise ‘corporate values’. Some organisations, such as one major fast moving consumer goods company in the UK, are adopting a two-tier intranet where the more ‘official’ intranet has
higher levels of regulation, but the less official intranet using Web 2.0 tools has lower levels.”
What of the future? Miller is upbeat that blogs can be used to deepen employee engagement but warns firms to be mindful of a revolt.
“Wikkies will continue to be popular with technical and expert groups within organisations. But companies must know what they are responsible for. The danger they face through these higher levels of employee engagement is the disproportionate power that the internal bloggers of an organisation will have as a mouthpiece for internal issues. If 100 people inside the company are a vocal network through internal blogs, then they can also can direct that energy against the corporate line.”
