UK Employees Want More Social Media Integration

According to new research, 79 per cent of UK employees in mid-market businesses believe social media integration with back-office solutions is essential to improving productivity, employee collaboration and supplier engagement.

The study was carried out by Source for Consulting in partnership with Advanced Business Solutions (ABS) and was based on a survey of finance, HR and IT staff from 160 mid-market organisations.

Results showed that 86 per cent of organisations use social media for external marketing and 75 per cent understand what is being said about them in public.

In contrast, only 17 per cent currently use social media tools such as enterprise social network systems to collaborate and share information internally.

Simon Fowler, managing director of ABS said, "Although social media is widely used for sales, marketing and customer services, it is not as well established as a means of optimising productivity by improving employee collaboration."

"People are an organisation's most valuable asset and social technologies enable them to collaborate and share their knowledge quickly and easily from wherever they are working. This technology is ideal for bringing disparate teams closer together, enabling them to share their expertise and build on their combined knowledge."

Almost two-thirds of respondents believe their organisation should be focusing more on internal collaboration and 69 per cent feel that social networks can help to cut down unnecessary email.

Social media can also help to streamline recruitment processes by enabling companies to engage directly with potential employees and by providing specific e-recruitment solutions to manage online applications.

Is your company doing enough to drive internal communication and collaboration? Let us know in the comments section below.