Interactive Communication through social media?
Interactive Communication? It could be a repetition due to the fact that without interaction there is no communication and without communication there is not interaction.
That’s clear, that’s true. But, what is really happening in Social Media? Many times, walls or tweets do not find recognition. Clearly, in this case, we have communication withouth interaction.
Thus, which is the real value of communication through social media? Recognition! A retweet, a like or a favorite are needed for creating social presence and real communication. If not, it is like look at an aquarium. Knowledge sharing as to work in the same way: valuable only through recognition. Social media mechanisms can help.
Work related envy as expectations’ frame
Many times, probably every day, it happens that people listen to someone speaking about others success or friends’ satisfaction at work.
In that cases reflections with respect to better work conditions are stressful issues that can ruin a person’s mood. But it is not the only result; this envy cannot be only a temporary threat for employees’ work life balance evaluation, but it is a long term issue that impacts on expectations. In other words, work related envy allows employees to compare their jobs with others ones and cause a reframing effect of personal relationship towards organizations.
Consequences? People strive to analyze the situation (loosing time and cognitive resources) probably thinking about job’s change (as quit) and expecting an improvement in the short term. Clearly expectations caused by work related envy are threats for employees commitment and engagement towards organizations.
Solutions? Speaking with your employees is not an old fashioned HR practice. Practically, it is core to return to engagement strategies through a dialectic analysis of employees cognitive evaluations of needs, threats and expectations.
Sharing responsibilities and pressures for newcomers
A newcomer is defined as a person who has recently arrived or started participating in something; thus, it implies that an individual has to be a part of a project, feeling and living a new experience.
In many case a successful “on board process” is an effect of a strong support through the different phases of the steps in a new organization. Many times a newcomer, who is not confident and has not the mastery of the new environment, have to be followed by an insider (i.e. an expert manager as a mentor) or being part of a well structured process. Why? Many studies showed that a shocking first experience in a new organization impacts on the future relationship (social, technical and psychological) between a person and the organization.
In comparison to a classical form of on board (called also organizational socialization), I think that could be really useful to socialize simultaneously a group of newcomers, better if the group is composed by persons with a similar history (i.e. same age, same level of education). This approach could create a sharing/supporting environment in which this sort of team shares responsibilities and pressures through conversations. An assured result of this actions is decreasing uncertainty and being-alone feeling that, as I said before, are common consequences of joining an unknown context.
Newcomers! What HR managers have to look?
Many times, during recruiting campaigns, organizations have the objective to attract people who have many technical skills and specific knowledge. It eliminates (consequently) many candidates from the shortlists who do not fit with this determinate requirements.
Is it correct? In my opinion, it is not. I define this kind of activity “on paper recruiting”; in fact organization sets as priority (and seek) skills that many times are showed and proved only on CVs. For example organizations look at attended academies/courses and acquired specialties or qualifications, and no more.
In my opinion it is more important to look at social skills and potential (the ones that are called soft skills) that are the requirements for a quick adaptation to the new organization. Similarly, it is core to have a look at relevant past work experiences that embed the cognitive framework that it is difficult to modify; consequently the adjustment to the new environment will not be set.
For these reasons it is more important to look at social skills than specific competencies/abilities.
Juventus vs Milan : historical rivalry!
This is the third article published on Natter Football (account Twitter) a really interesting website about football news; the article was published a couple of days ago.
In that article I presented a brief history about the historical rivalry between Ac Milan and Juventus FC. Have a look at the full story Serie A Rivalry
Snow and rain… stopped game!
Italy is also called Belpaese for its beautiful landscapes, monuments and the usual presence of sun. Actually last week started snowing and the weather has not the will to change soon. Now, you who are reading this post are probably thinking: what’s the connection with football? Here we are: when we have much snow, or heavy rain, most of the times football matches are postponed! Yes, it is so anachronistic and probably it sounds so sad for you who live in United Kingdom or other Northern European countries but it is the reality in the Belpaese.
Why is it possible? Let’s start explaining why. Imagine your favourite club’s stadium: probably you see the fans’ shop, a pub, restaurants, clubs’ museum, a crowd on the stands and other facilities. Now, you have to eliminate all these things and also a green grass. Well, now you have an Italian stadium. I am not referring to little clubs, in fact if you google San Siro pictures (FC Internazionale and AC Milan stadium), also called “La Scala del Calcio” as Milan football theatre, you will notice it. Result of this situation: rain or snow many games are blown!
All the stadiums in Italy were really renewed for the World Cup of 1990, but till then Italian football fans did not notice a change in terms of facilities’ improvements. The maintenance is done only for security reasons or general interventions, like changing part of the grass (many times we have brown grass or none). Last huge change was the introduction of new “turnstiles”, due to a new regulation approved by Italian Parliament, with the aim of checking who has access to the stadium. A part from this new security rule, there is nothing new to notice.
The main problem is that football clubs are not owner of their stadium, but they usually have rent’s contracts. The owners are city councils that give the licence to manage the stadium, but with really limited authority. Many football clubs have the will to build new stadiums, but bureaucracy is killing them (Last example is Cagliari). The only cases of real innovation is done by Novara Calcio, Cesena and Juventus FC. The firsts implemented a pitch with artificial grass; the last one, last September, inaugurated a new stadium which respects European standards. It is allowing the club to gain new revenues from restaurants, shops and increasing in entrances. Other stadiums are losing entrances incomes, a part from big matches, because no one is interested to join this uncomfortable situation. Juventus stadium it is a real revolution for Italian football because there are no seats every game and the atmosphere is a real push for players. And unbelievable but true, Juventus played his match against Atalanta with a huge snow with green grass two weeks ago!
This is Serie A actual situation: empty stadiums, uncomfortable way to watch football and living a game in the 90’s. Sad, but true.
Fortunately not! Tevez-move
This is the second atypical post of the blog, but I hope that there will be many more in the next weeks. I wrote another article for Natter Football (account Twitter) a really interesting website about football news; today a couple of days ago, an article was published.
I showed my opinions about Carlos Tevez possible move to Serie A and expected consequences of that. . Have a look there for the full story Tevez move
Serie A: full of talent
This is an atypical post of the blog, but I hope that there will be many more in the last week. I started writing for Natter Football (account Twitter) a really interesting website about football news; today my first article was published.
It is written with the aim of showing that Italian clubs are best performers in talent seeking. Additionally, the players who join Serie A when they are young, many times became champions. Have a look there for the full story Serie A, full of talent
“Like”, if you “Like” me and n+1 visibility
In a past post (Like if you like me) I underlined the fact that several times when we write a post on Facebook and we receive a like, we have the tendency to have a look at our friend posts. Many times it happens that we like her/his posts. Reflection about possible organization-social media link, I imagined a possible scenario.
Even if several organizations are going or had set horizontal structures, there are (certainly) hierarchical relationships’ connections; thus, it is important reasoning about how the “like reaction” situation is connected with a hierarchical distribution of power. According to several scientific articles, feedback is a with performance recognition and prestige; in the case of giving a feedback to a n+1 level (supervisor, coach, head of department) , it implies a possible attempt to increase personal prestige and visibility in an organization. It ‘s like the retweet of Twitter: a positive feedback that improve online visibility; and a n+1 surely has more “followers”.
It is true that theoretically a social media gives to employees the same access to information, possibility to develop a network and give feedback , but, in my opinion, there is still the obstacle of perceived superpowers of n+1. Thus, I am sure that invest on social media can help organizations with respect to several uses (like renewal of customer care, corporate social responsibility and improving of knowledge sharing) but it is still needed a cultural change and organization support to exploit the huge potential of these media.
Close offices, turn off phones… and go home!
As I showed in a past post (Organizations’ intrusion), in my opinion, organizations need to be present in their employees’ extra-work life. Specifically companies have to assure a correct work life balance. In this post I present actions that can be simply implemented.
Firstly, organization have to close their offices at a reasonable hour, for example at 5 pm. I think it’s reasonable, most all because usually a working day starts at 9 am. With “close their offices” I mean that it is not possible to go inside, completely closed. Surely it is more complicated to set it for international businesses, but HR managers have to find out a similar schedule for employees applied in this kind of jobs (for example create a similar schedule with free-mornings).
Secondly, after a working day, people cannot call office numbers (phones and cell phones) and the same has to be set for emails’ communication. How to do it? Stopping devices’ access.
Obviously it is needed a working cultural change, but it is needed. These measures are really strict, but are related to an improvement with respect to productivity during working hours, an personal/private chance for sensemaking, a part from an obvious stress’ decrease. It is core to look at the quality of the job and not at the quantity.
