Introduction
Organisations explore new avenues in order to keep their employees updated on the recent needs in the market. Using Twitter to train employees is cost-effective and efficient. Employers can request employees to join professional networks that discuss current market dynamics.
The Twitter Company that has approximately 2,000 employees in offices around the world offers useful tools for organisations to encourage their employees to work towards achieving the strategic business goals and objectives.
Employee motivation via social media occurs by including Twitter in the marketing objectives of an organisation. An organisation has to set out clear guidelines on social media usage in order to make employees’ engagement on social media beneficial to the firm. In terms of motivation, both positive and negative reinforcements are helpful to employees.
Learning and Development using Twitter. Update Employees on New Developments
In keeping up with the new technology in Learning and Development (L&D), employers will appreciate the need for inclusion of social media within organisations. Employees will be able to follow tweets on changes that affect their operations at the workplaces. Learning and development has been effective in making businesses remain relevant in the present competitive and dynamic market.
This culture requires that organisations should employ creative, innovative, and self-motivated individuals who like meeting new challenges. In addition, there should be need for employees’ training in order to learn the art of sharing any information that they have and they think can affect business operations in any way through re-tweets (Murrell & Meredith 2000).
Evidently, using Twitter in leaning and development makes it easier for organisations to gain competitive advantage over their competitors in the market. Employers should change employees’ perceptions or views on Twitter from a social tool to a professional development tool (Hart 2010).
In addition, an organisation can create a learning and development account on Twitter, which all employees ‘follow’ from their personal accounts. In this aspect, the learning department will update employees on new developments that require immediate adoption in their mode of operations.
With high number of current employees having Twitter accounts, organisations find it easier to initiate learning networks for their employees (Bozarth 2011).
Employees have to keep daily connection with professional bodies that deal in their lines of operation. Using live chat sessions and backchannels at conferences, employers will be able to train their employees how to work towards satisfying needs of their customers, as well as maintaining friendly relations among themselves.
Motivation and Reward using Twitter. Reinforcement
Employee motivation and reward forms a core component in increasing their satisfaction levels within any organisation. Organisations can use a scheme were they tweet the name of ‘Employee of the Week,’ and through re-tweeting, the employee gets motivated to produce more and better quality work with the aim of appearing again on the company’s Twitter account (Nohria, Groysberg & Lee 2010).
When an employer fails to meet the target, the company can publish his/her name as a form of negative reinforcement so that he/she can change by working hard to achieve high performance. Engaging employees in marketing on social media helps in advertising a company to large markets, as they will re-tweet information of the company to pools friends.
Once they follow the company’s Twitter account, tweets from the company will frequently stream on their accounts, thus improving the market base of the firm. A company can offer to give incentives to employees whose re-tweets bring legitimate productivity to the company.
For example, if the company gets new clients from an employee’s re-tweets, it is necessary to give that employee some rewards for the lucrative deal on Twitter. Performance-based incentives are crucial in making employees understand their tasks and expectations.
In this aspect, spot bonuses, commissions, and compensations-based on salaries and performances motivate employees at their workplaces. Twitter, as a social network platform, is useful in keeping organisations and employees updated on the current market trends (Craik 2012).
With employees joining workplaces intrinsically motivated, it remains the role of the employer to engage and appreciate employees, as well as provide authentic leadership to direct employees towards attaining the objectives of the firm.
Employee Recognition Programmes
The current global and dynamic market forces businesses to use social networks to engage their employees in daily operations. At the same time, firms have set out their visions and values in key social media sites in order to provide cohesive work environments, which are set on the organisational cultures.
Organisations having employee recognition programmes register higher performance than those that lack such programmes. Reward in business is predicated on the basic premise of the enterprise’s “ability to pay” and, therefore, the underpinning driver is the profitability of the business and the value of the contribution of the stakeholder (Deeprose 1994).
A company can set monthly or yearly rewards for employees who manage to bring in more customers to the premises. At the same time, the company should give such employees privileges to use Twitter account while at the workplace.
However, they must operate under strict guidelines to limit reduction in productivity. Since rewards can also be intangible, such as inform of praise, the HR department can initiate the use of online badges in which the tagging of employees’ names become visible on the company’s Twitter account.
This move makes these employees to feel unique among their colleagues, thus resulting to motivation to other workers to achieve the same status (Jenkins 2012). Notably, employees who win such recognition on Twitter will tend to work hard in order to maintain the same status, hence increasing the productivity of the company.
Use of badges in social media has been widespread, as the practice helps in setting goals for most organisations. Rewards can be useful in recognising an employee for participating in any company event. Such moves motivate employees, as they fulfil an employee’s desires and psychological needs.
In using social media recognition, firms can easily produce high profits as employees acquire proper understanding of the company’s requirements to recognise an employee.
Development of High Work Esteem
With the high rate of technological development, employees tend to use social sites like Twitter and Facebook to connect with their friends, connect with customers, conduct business transactions, share work-related content, and connect with co-workers (Nichols 2011). In order to motivate employees to develop high esteem for work, employers must develop social networking policies that allow the use of Twitter for employees.
Factually, most clients have Twitter accounts and, therefore, such moves will fulfil employees’ social needs. Employers should encourage employees to use Twitter, and follow each other, as well as giving their opinions on the companies’ accounts.
In this direction, employees will be able to give productive ideas to the company, thus necessitating the need for rewards and appreciation (Bell 2012). Even though some employers are still uncomfortable with incorporating social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook in their operations, these sites are effective in HR training and development, as well as corporate motivation.
List of References
Bell, E. 2012, Using Social Media to Motivate Employees and Build a Community. Getsatisfaction Blog. Web.
Bozarth, J. 2011, Using social media for workplace learning, Using social media for workplace learning. Web.
Craik, K. 2012, Social Media Tool that Encourages Employee Motivation, Business View USA. Web.
Deeprose, D. 1994 How to recognize & reward employees, AMACOM, American Management Association, New York.
Hart, J. 2010, Social Media for Working & Learning, ‘Social Media for Working & Learning’. Web.
Jenkins, A. 2012, About Employee Motivation & Reward Systems, Small Business. Web.
Murrell, K. L., & Meredith, M 2000, Empowering employees, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Nichols, J. 2011, Motivating Employees through Facebook, Forbes. Web.
Nohria, N., Groysberg, B., & Lee, L. 2010, Motivation in Today’s Workplace: The Link to Performance, Strategic Human Resources Management. Web.