This was a couple of years back.
A fairly senior employee in a MNC I was associated with had a tiff with his
immediate boss. Matters came to a head and the gentleman was forced to leave.
Not wanting to leave without extracting his pound of flesh, he wrote a long,
damaging mail, replete with juicy details about his boss’ perversions and even
hinted at corrupt practices. He then anonymously posted the letter, from an
unsuspecting colleague’s desktop to the entire company database. You can jolly
well imagine the fallout.
Disgruntled employees bad mouthing
employers or bosses is more of a rule than an exception. But the way they have
been “empowered”, thanks to the social media revolution is frightening. Today,
I can “tweet and blog and dance in joy / for I have spread the hate words about
Kill joy” with chances that Kill joy (the management) won’t even know about it,
till I am long gone.
Today most young employees are
not only extremely media savvy, but are also wired to the teeth to boot. Sadly,
Corporate India has been left far behind these tech junkies. The result is
catastrophic. Employees are spitting venom about their bosses, their employers
– ridiculing company policies and sharing company information that has no
business to be in the public domain. That too with gay abandon. And those that
need to hit the panic button are either busy napping or are too callous to even
spot the trend.
This is happening as a wide swath
across Corporate India is either ignorant or are deliberately keeping their
eyes closed to the phenomenon called “Social Media”. Besides, stingy as they
are, they do not want to open another expenditure stream for tackling the
menace (?). “What harm can a lowly employee’s post do? How many people do he /
she know in any case? Of the ones who actually read such posts, how many will
actually believe them? Even if they do, what harm will it make to the company?
Don’t tell me we have to be in facebook to sell metallurgical coal – that’s
ridiculous!” Were the common refrains when in broached the topic to a number of
movers and shakers of the industry. Ignorance indeed is bliss!
I dared not go deeper into Social
Media Policy. Or for that matter the efficacies of having one. Why waste time
with people who are unwilling to cross even the next frontier after the
mandatory website that is not even updated? But unknown to them there’s a storm
that is brewing – one that has the potential of forcing a paradigm shift. A
game changer - that will force us to rethink about how corporates will
communicate and engage their target audiences in the future. Traditional media
will certainly not be enough and our Corporates will have to learn the new
rules of engagement.
How it is done? Who can help you
win in the social space? How can you reign in errant employees? What do you do
when an irritated customer goes ballistic? How do you win friends and influence
people in the social media space? How
can Linked-in help you to fight attrition? How can you tweet into your
employee’s heart? How can you stumble upon to eternal truths and Google plus it
to make your brand achieve cult status?
Ha,ha! I’m not telling
buddy. It can be done. And the sooner
you do it the better. Else, a fate worse than the one that befell the
dinosaurs, awaits you. I am waiting for a negative Kolavari – a venom laced
employee / customer post that will go viral and shake Corporate India out of
its slumber with the rudest of the jolts. Till then I am willing to sit on the
fence. The time will come and I will be there to pull you guys out. But for
going further, you have to show us the moolah! Social media insights do not
come free, you know!
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