Impact of Social media on Human resource management

Information technology advancement like the widespread use of social media have affected
businesses across all industries and changed the way human resource professionals do their jobs.
Human resource management are responsible not only just planning a good benefits package for
company employees but also for knowing and following laws regarding discrimination and
privacy protection. HR professionals are also expected to help build the company’s brand and
reputation using their industry knowledge and expert interpersonal skills. 

Recruitment of Applicants:

In the Information Age privacy rights are still cherished by many. Today’s children complains
that their privacy has been violated by their parents and also remind them that they have no
private lives when they post everything on Social media. But human resource professionals
cannot adopt that attitude when it comes to screening job applicants and hiring new employees.
The laws of equal employment that forbid discrimination for factors like age, gender etc have
not changed even though a human resource professional can view pictures and text that would
raise red flags about an otherwise qualified candidate. Policies were created by Human Resource
managers to protect themselves and their organizations from allegations of discrimination by
assigning a third-party person to screen applicants based on some criteria for jobs. Hence, hiring
managers can make decisions about job applicants without knowing characteristics about them
like race, ethnicity or marital status.

Training and Development of Talent:

Developing educational materials and travelling to different company sites to deliver training to
employees is a thing of technological improvements. Training and developing staff can now
create a customized computer based training modules and also deploy them online for the benefit
of employees around the world. Learning options has been extended because they create
collaborative environments for students and instructors to share and discuss knowledge
informally.

Corporate changes Announcement:

Company executive officers like to share good news to stakeholders, it is the human resource
manager that is responsible for announcing bad news or other significant organizational changes
to individuals and business divisions. Social media platforms like Twitter allows human resource
managers to efficiently and effectively broadcast announcements to large groups at once which
cuts down on rumors that creates temporary anxiety among employees. These platforms also
facilitates question and answer sessions that are needed when companies roll out new policies
and procedures.
Collecting Feedback about the company:

HR professionals typically care about measuring and improving employee performance.

However, modern managers are also concerned on how the companies for which they work are
perceived in the marketplace. When online social platforms are exploited, human resource
managers can glean candid, positive and negative feedback about company policies, hiring
practices and culture from sources like current staff, job applicants and even former employees.