Research on social networks in terms of HR

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1 26 th Bled econference einnovations: Challenges and Impacts for Individuals, Organizations and Society June 9, 2013 June 13, 2013; Bled, Slovenia University of economics in Prague, the Czech Republic Abstract The dissertation project is focused on social networks and their influence on HR in organizations during the process of choosing new employees. The thesis will be divided in two parts: Theoretical part contains history of the social networks and explanation of related theories, description of labour market and analysis of job boards and social networks in relation to HR. Practical part (research) is focused on analysis of interviews, answer sheets etc. The aim is to research, if the social networks could replace job boards as jobs.cz, prace.cz etc. (job boards in the Czech Republic) Next aim of the thesis is to compare the form - how the companies offer new/vacant jobs on internet. Another focus is to discover how the HR specialists evaluate the use of social networks to help the recruitment of new employees and what their experience with this way of recruiting is. Keywords: social media, job boards, human resources, recruitment on social networks 1 Definition of the subject area World of the 21st century is highly globalized and the internet plays an important role in it. Older methods in interpersonal communication in business are being replaced with modern trends. In many cases the new trend are the information technologies and all the benefits they provide. We are shopping and making calls over the Internet. People virtually build new contacts and associate themselves, companies are seeking new business opportunities and last but not least, the internet serves as a source of entertainment. But even the Internet itself passes through its development. At the beginning of this century, social networks largely started to expand worldwide. Social network can be defined as the social structure of individuals or groups that are interconnected by a certain type of relationship. Previously, the social networks were mostly social the space for communication among friends and making new contacts. Recently, we can see the rising interest in social networks from the business sector. Companies are promoting their products in the social networks, maintaining contact with clients and now also looking for their employees. Without humans is usually very difficult to reach the objectives. Diligent people are invaluable and can significantly help to achieve the targets of the organization. For 22

2 employers, the hiring of excellent employees is becoming a great challenge. In this respect, there are two important factors - economic and innovative. Due to the economic savings, the global crisis and the pursuit of efficiency, companies are trying to find their employees by the most inexpensive form. An important alternative to traditional recruitment (as the job boards are eg. jobs.cz in the Czech Republic) is to find potential employees using social networks. The important goal is to save money and time in the selection of employees, but on the other hand, the great interest is, that these savings should not affect the quality of potential employees. It is therefore necessary to seek innovative solutions in the selection process, which can be the aforementioned social networks. Related to that a cost-effectiveness analysis could be used by the companies to decide if the traditional way of recruitment is still the most efficient or if there is a space for new approaches. Social networks provide - about the individuals - in many ways more information than the HR interview with the candidate. In the United States the selection of employees through the social networks is a common practice (O'Neill, 2012). In the Czech Republic it is a new challenge. In my study, the concrete subject area will be social networks and job boards in the Czech Republic, their evolution, relationships, efficiency and future. 2 Current theoretical and practical problems in dealing with the subject area Nowadays there are many discussions on the topic of the use of social networks for purposes other than the original they were made for. Typically, this topic is analyzed in relation to the networks Facebook and Twitter. Qualman (2011) argues that: Social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are fundamentally changing the way businesses and consumers behave, connecting hundreds of millions of people to each other via instant communication. It is a comprehensive resource for bringing together such disparate areas as IT, customer service, sales, communications and more, to meet social media goals. Smith, Wollan, & Zhou (2011) explain policies, procedures, roles and responsibilities, metrics, strategies, incentives, and legal issues that may arise. Social networks are significantly penetrating into various fields and the area of Human Resources is no exception. The question remains whether they have a chance to fully break into the HR field and become a full-fledged tool for job search and selection of employees. Or whether they are able to move the field of HR in any direction forward or even replace the currently very popular tools, which are job boards as jobs.cz, prace.cz etc. that currently dominate the field of HR in Czech republic. Breitbarth (2011) in his book extols the benefits of creating a well-crafted LinkedIn account. 3 My experience in the subject area (thesis, publications, field experience) During the master degree studies, I tried to gain practical experience in the field and I had a part-time job in the agency where I was in contact with the use of social networks and human resources in practice. This issue I reflected on later in my thesis and I would like to continue and deepen my research during doctoral studies and in my dissertation thesis. 23

3 In my opinion and my experience, social networking has its place in the field of HR and it is desirable to examine the development and their specific role in HR, as well as to compare the different uses of social networks in different parts of the world. United States and Europe have a different approach to the use of social networks in personnel management. I also participated in numerous conferences and training sessions about human resources and social networking. Among the important conferences I could mention the Bled conference 2011 or regular LMC conferences. I also attended a summer school organized by the University of Maribor in Slovenia, where I presented the final project on the social media. I also tutored training on these issues: How can social networks be beneficial and not time eaters? How to be efficient in recruiting? And many others. 4 Preliminary definition of the objectives of the dissertation Main question of the thesis might be: are the social networks capable of replacing job boards and become the main way to recruit employees? Main hypotheses: The importance of social networks, from the perspective of HR, will rise in the long term. Hypotheses: H1: More people will look for a job in social networks. H2: More employers will actively use the channel of social networks to find employees. H3: Job boards will partially move into the social networking environment. Further preliminary sub-questions could be: How recruiters perceive the social networks today? What are the benefits of social networking for HR? I plan to divide the thesis into two parts. The first theoretical part, containing a brief description of the history of the field of human resources, introduction to social networks and some of the theories associated with the evolution of them. Furthermore the research will continue with analysis of the possibilities for recruitment, followed by detailed analysis of the social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and job boards. The second part would contain specific research. Both parts will be created then the conclusion should summarize the whole thesis. 5 Research made and planned Up to the recent time I can present concrete parts of research that I organized in the past years and also describe my plans about the future research. 24

4 From the past research I would like to mention to important parts. One was a questionnaire for HR specialists in the Czech Republic. It was focused on use of the social sciences in the recruitment. The other was a comparison of different ways of online recruitment (job boards, social networks, web pages of companies) regarding the advantages and disadvantages of each type. 5.1 The questionnaire The aim of the questionnaire was to analyze the current view and experience in HR recruitment in the area of social networks compared to traditional methods, such as advertising on job boards. The questionnaire contained 20 questions, which were divided into two logical units. The first part was devoted to usability, evaluation and comparison of social networks in recruitment with job portals. It contained both closed and open-ended questions in which respondents could evaluate and express their views on social networks and job boards, as well as state their personal experience. The second part had an identifying character. The purpose of this part was to define the respondents as perfectly as it was possible in all aspects. The result of the survey clearly showed the dominance of job portals in the Czech Republic, but it also clearly registered the rise of social networks and especially the fact that they are firmly based in the Czech labor market. Specific results are as follows: Conclusion of the question "Do you view the candidate profile on the social network?" Is that HR professionals, in almost 53% check the candidates profiles of the candidate profile views. see Fig. 1. The questionnaire survey was conducted using the site vyplnto.cz organized in that period time: A link to the questionnaire was sent directly to HR professionals in various sectors within the country. The questionnaire was also spread via social networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook, in the forums and discussion groups focusing on HR. The total return was 61.8% of which 77.9% comes from ing, 12.6% from LinkedIn and 2.3% from Facebook. Other sources are negligible. As a deterrent against the accumulation of responses from one respondent, we imposed a condition of unique IP addresses per response. The research included 206 women (72.28%) 79 men (27.72%). Half of the respondents include the age category years. Approximately ¼ of the respondents are a group of people aged 35 to 44 years. Group of people aged 45 to 54 are approx. one tenth (13.5%). The rest consists of persons aged years and older than 55 years. According to the division of companies by size into small, medium, large enterprise and micro-enterprise in which the respondents work, their representation in the questionnaire is almost equal. Fields and towns, from which the respondents come are largely influenced by where the questionnaire was circulated. Therefore, Prague is most represented, almost 70%. Industries such as consulting, mediation, evaluation, information technologies and services are together 43%. 25

5 Figure 1: Do you view the profile of the candidate on the social network? The questionnaire also revealed that HR professionals who use social networks in their personal life, are far more inclined to use social networking for business purposes - in this particular case, the selection of candidates. My study also shows that HR professionals from large companies in the majority think that social networks are the future and are either a supplement or a main method of finding candidates. The reason may be the fact that large companies are often part of multinational chains. And if the chain comes from the USA, the employees in the Czech Republic can be affected significantly by the overall corporate culture. An interesting fact is, that the recruiters who still did not accept any employee based on a contact from the social networks, from time to time view the profiles of candidates. The questionnaire survey highlighted that HR professionals whose business is on social networks and who also organize recruitment within the social networks, are most frequently aged between years. This confirms the assumption that the younger generation has therefore closer relation to social networks and modern technology than the older one. 5.2 Comparing the different means of online recruitment Analysis of the current possibilities of online recruitment, which I have made in June 2012, shows the advantages of social networking compared to job boards and websites. In the Table 1 you can see that the most important advantages of social networks are: price (they are free); speed (instant publication); and digital footprint. HR professionals realize the benefits of social media. This is confirmed by the results of a questionnaire survey (mentioned above) in the question "What benefits of social networking do you perceive in recruitment?". As the largest social network see the HR specialists the advantage that the social networks are the current trend. At another place was the possibility to watch a digital footprint of candidates also the possibility of displaying the information immediately, and a possibility to make the job offers for free. 26

6 kind of employees advantages disadvantages Job board (jobs.cz) junior and senior management, graduates many responses CV database seeking, almost nonlimited advertisment price, a large number of irrelevant responses FB LinkedIn Twitter young people, graduates existence of digital footprint, increasing visitors of corporate FB page uncertainty that someone replies distrust in FB specialists, specialists senior and top management CV presentation, references, circles of friends, interest groups activity must make HR easy reach of specialists worldwide limited number of characters, little used in the Czech Republic Corporal websites active jobseekers responses of active individuals who are interested in a particular company limited distribution low response Table 1: Comparing the different means of online recruitment In the future I would like to repeat these two researches to compare the evolving situation of social sciences in the labor market. In my opinion the importance of social networks will grow. 5.3 Future research Recently I am testing a project that counts a frequency of using key words in social networking. My defined keywords are: job seeking, new job and others related to the job search and recruitment. The objective is to count how many times these words are mentioned in different virtual spaces. The project is still running. Another project is cooperation with the job boards. The objective is to announce the same vacant positions (that are offered in the web page of job board) in the social networks. Concretely; job board will offer a vacant position of an IT engineer. We announce the same job in the LinkedIn and Facebook (in the appropriate web pages where these people are present) and we evaluate the reaction in social sciences and job boards. This research I have recently started. In the future I will focus on the companies ability of orientation in the social networks: keeping the rules of that space; means of looking for new employees; and the presentation of vacant positions. 27

7 Acknowledgments This article was prepared with the support of the research project: IGA ALL no.f4/16/2012 No. "The importance and influence of social networks in shaping the information society and socio-economic environment" led by Ing. PhDr. Anthony Pavlicek, Ph.D. References Books Breitbarth W. (2011). The Power Formula for Linkedin Success: Kick-start Your Business, Brand, and Job. Austin, Tex.: Greenleaf Book Group Press. Qualman, E. (2011). Digital Leader: 5 Simple Keys to Success and Influence. New York: McGraw-Hill. Smith N., Wollan E., & Zhou C. (2011). The Social Media Management Handbook: Everything You Need To Know To Get Social Media Working In Your Business. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley Web page O'Neill, M. (2012). 92% Of U.S. Companies Now Using Social Media For Recruitment, Social Times, (on-line: 28