Social HR can make all the difference to HR in 2011.

This is the passionately-held view of Grant Mason, Director Great People Systems, in Brisbane, Australia  - and  author of today's XpertHR guest blog post.

Grant agues that Social HR can help HR add significant value and help the profession get ahead by utilising internal social media to hand the agenda "over to the employees who are creative, enthusiastic and innovative."

The debate about social media and HR is an ongoing one, with many different perspectives. Right now, an interesting discussion on social media policies is getting underway over on XpertHR's Tribunal Watch blog. And for further in-depth analysis of the issues around HR and social media, read this 2010 post from XpertHR Content and Platform Director David Shepherd (and the subsequent debate in the comments field): Yes, social media are a real threat to employers.

If you like what Grant has to say here, I would strongly recommend checking out Yacktime. You can also read Grant's contribution to XpertHR's If I could change one thing about HR... series, and see more of his views in our post on how social media can humanise HR.

You can follow Grant on Twitter and connect with him via LinkedIn.

This post originally appeared on Grant's excellent Yacktime blog. My thanks to Grant for his very kind permission to share this post with XpertHR's readers.

Grant Mason on 'Social HR': Three reasons why HR should be crazy about social media
I am passionate about something. I have high expectations. Unmet expectations can drive people crazy. So before I go crazy hear me out! I believe the HR community should go crazy about social media. Not just about Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter. Something even more exciting - internal social media. This should be the most exciting innovation that HR has seen at least since author Dave Ulrich suggested HR could leave the Personnel bunker and take their seat at the executive board room table.

HR. Social. Let me clarify something. This is not the same as saying HR people should be the "social" in the sense of social butterflies or of social club convenors any more than if you are a people person you should go into HR. No fluffy duck HR.

It is quite simple. HR should be about achieving business results through people. Just like the engineer in charge of a capital asset is constantly looking for better ways to get return on the capital employed, an HR practitioner should be similarly obsessed with how people can get their work done.

So enter the internal social network. There are at least three things that should excite HR people about Social HR:

1. The focus is on people
HR has been through phases from personnel to process to posters (or what we call EVP's). Social HR has a definite focus. People. Sure some of the risk-averse HR body buriers who don't actually like people, think any internal social network will be taken over by scallywags and recalcitrants. Possibly this is because they deal with the 5% of the workforce who are dimwits and tricksters. Feel free to insert your own word.

Social HR steals back the agenda and hands it over to the employees who are creative, enthusiastic and innovative. The focus of a great company should be the PEOPLE who can inspire others, solve problems and achieve great things. If you want to increase the performance of your organisation this is a tremendous opportunity. Shift your focus back to your best asset. Motivated and committed people. Focus on these people.

Read the complete post at http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2011/11/grant-mason-on-social-hr-three.html

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Posted 11 Nov 2011 7:00 AM by XpertHR - Employment Intelligence | Report Abuse

Filed under: social networking, social media, HR 2.0, social hr