HR is becoming the next key function after sales and marketing to explore the potential of social media and other Web 2.0 technologies as managers increasingly set their sights on acquiring and retaining high quality staff.
 
According to Rachel Philips, technology director for Oracle’s Enterprise 2.0 collaboration software, HR professionals are now "starting to realise that productivity can be enhanced and motivation increased by providing staff with the right technology to enable them to work more effectively."
 
But to overcome resistance to change among less enthusiastic individuals, organisations must embed usage into their business processes and ensure that they understand the personal value of employing them.
 
Tazeeb Rajwani, a research fellow at the Cranfield School of Management, explained that introducing the software itself is a relatively straightforward process. "The hardest part", however, is changing human behaviour and motivating personnel to collaborate and use such technologies effectively.
 
"Value is key and it has to be aligned with business strategy. Whatever information you’re going to try and capture and exchange, it has to add value to the bottom line," he said.
 
But the technology also has to be easy and enjoyable to use and it likewise "has to be of use or value to the individual employing it if those benefits are going to cascade to the bottom line", Rajwani added.
 
This means that business managers need to understand both their organisational design and how target groups within the enterprise might be motivated to use the software if they are to overcome resistance to change and established ‘best practice’.
 
"I’m not saying that corporate cultures need to change entirely, but new rituals may need to be introduced to enhance that culture. Organisations such as BT and Shell, for example, put reward systems in place to incentivise and motivate people to collaborate and to make it the norm," Rajwani said.
 
Philips agreed. She cited the example of Directgov, which used crowd-sourcing techniques to improve the functionality of its website in a bid to attract more UK citizens to it.
 
As a result, rather than hire more development staff in-house, the body introduced a project called Innovate. The aim was to incentivise developers to build citizen-focused applications that would be used on the website if they were good enough.
 
"The competition element was at the heart so the idea was to put it out there and gain the wisdom of the crowd," Philips said.