Talking Talent

Everyone’s talking about Facebook.  And if you’re an employer, you’re probably worried about your workers wasting office hours social networking when they should be productive.

Relax.  Facebook can be an essential addition to your employees’ web working toolbox.

So how can Facebook benefit business?

For starters, Facebook is all about community.  As a social networking tool, it allows you to leave messages on users’ walls, join groups and participate in discussions.  You can connect with old and new co-workers and clients without being intrusive. Add these people to Facebook and stay in touch without needing to actively maintain a conversation via email or phone.

Use Facebook to virally tackle a business cause.  Look for business opportunities out of shared interests.  Ask questions, and take advantage of Facebook’s collective intelligence with the My Questions application.  Gain insight into business challenges and discover new resources through your network.

Of course, it’s important to edit your profile and security settings, giving careful consideration to exactly who sees your profile and when.  Facebook can come back to haunt you, as the Australian swimming team found out recently.

But before brushing aside Facebook as a fad, remember: if you are hiring the next generation of workers, it’s important – regardless of your age – that you remain web-literate and in touch with the latest Internet trends.

Want to know more about how to use Web 2.0 in the workplace? 

Sacha Chua, who calls herself an “enterprise social computing consultant, storyteller, author and geek” has developed a short slide show called the Gen Y guide to Web 2.0 at work.  It only takes a couple of minutes to look at.

Could Web 2.0 help companies to bridge the skills gap?  Chua believes that, due to the ‘cool factor’ of Web 2.0 technologies, companies embracing Web 2.0 “tend to attract sophisticated, high-calibre technical candidates.”