Blogging is a popular pastime in China … and it is growing fast. Reports from China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) estimate that there are over 70 million blogs written by almost 50 million bloggers in China at present. These impressive statistics are despite the first Chinese blog appearing as late as 2002. However, currently, most of us think of blogging in a personal context. Few organisations seem to have realised the potential blogs can have for HR.
Many organisations - both multinational and domestic - publish blogs on their websites. However, usually, these tend to focus more on sales and customer service than on HR. For example, companies like Microsoft and HP have blogs dedicated to the latest technological developments spewing forth from their organisations. These are fantastic for the purpose for which the organisations design them. Customers get the latest information about products and developments that matter most to them. Yet, I cannot help but feel that they are missing out by using blogs in such a narrow way. Whilst many companies put great energy into blogs for their external customers, unfortunately, most do not invest as heavily on blogs that could have an internal impact on their organisation. So, what can you do to change this and to utilise blogs?
First of all, let’s think about exactly what you want to achieve. You can employ corporate blogs in a HR context to achieve two major goals:
To create a quick and easy way for different sites or departments to share ideas and experiences
To foster a sense of belonging amongst your employees.
Ideas
An issue we have dealt with at length in previous issues of Network HR is creating clear communication channels and building teams across China and across continents. To do this we have looked at such factors as social networking sites, global teambuilding and teleconferencing. Blogs too can work well to bring dispersed teams and departments together. How can they do this? With organisations spreading their wings across the globe on an ever-increasing scale, people and resources are now scattered over huge distances. Therefore, face-to-face interaction is becoming increasingly rare for many teams. For such reasons, it is all too easy for organisations to grow dislocated and for different departments and different sites to operate in their own little cocoons, oblivious to goings-on in other areas. This is tragic and easily avoidable. Blogs are great ways for each department to share new ideas or simply to let others know what is going on. You could easily set up a system that would keep your entire organisation linked in to each other.The first step in creating a corporate blog that will bring everyone within your organisation together is to establish a forum into which employees can submit their blogs. To do this you could use an outside web tool, such as social networking sites like Facebook, Zhanzuo or MySpace, or you could ask your IT department to create a similar feature within your organisation’s website using PHPBB software. From there, things are really up to you. There are three ways in which you could get your blogs moving.
The first approach to setting up your blogs would be to designate one person from each department or geographical site to contribute a blog entry each week. Their entries should feature news and new ideas from each area of your organization, such as any events organizat by a particular site or department, or changes in personnel. This will serve to keep everyone up to speed with events across your organization.
The second approach would be to ask a different team-member from each department to blog each week or every two or three days. This helps to share news and ideas, but also adds a teambuilding element to the blogs. By involving everyone in this process, colleagues from across China or across the world get to know and understand each other a little more. Previously, ‘Miss Zhang’ and ‘Mr. Smith’ were just names to colleagues on different sites, but with a blog entry, they become real people with real ideas and emotions.
The final approach to your blogs is to place few restrictions on their use and allow anyone who wants to blog make comments online. This may limit the amount of departmental and organisational information you may share, but it would be more effective as a teambuilding tool.
In the last issue of Network HR, Allan Nee of Baode Law in Tianjin wrote a detailed and insightful article about the ways in which your organisation needs to adapt to China's new Labour Laws. Allan offered a myriad of fantastic advice. However, there was one factor he mentioned that really captured my attention - transparency.Read More
Benefits
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he seeds of this article were sewn as I put together the last edition of Network HR. First, as I edited the Training & Development section, I read the following prophetic words from Jennifer Peterson, "If you want your customers to feel cared for, you must care for the employees that serve them." This started me musing about the way organisations across China treat employees.Read More
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A single droplet of sweat trickled down my neck as the glowing amber sun beat down on us. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw our competitors lined up alongside us. It was the moment we had been preparing for over the last 5 years. Our goal was crystal clear and I had visualised this very occasion countless times.Read More
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World' conference in Shanghai. The topic, "Selecting Potential Leaders and Turning a Company from Good to Great", was
provided some months earlier, giving me time to source opinions from
around China. Read More
In the last issue of Network HR, Allan Nee of Baode Law in Tianjin wrote a detailed and insightful article about the ways in which your organisation needs to adapt to China's new Labour Laws. Allan offered a myriad of fantastic advice. However, there was one factor he mentioned that really captured my attention - transparency.Read More
he seeds of this article were sewn as I put together the last edition of Network HR. First, as I edited the Training & Development section, I read the following prophetic words from Jennifer Peterson, "If you want your customers to feel cared for, you must care for the employees that serve them." This started me musing about the way organisations across China treat employees.Read More
A single droplet of sweat trickled down my neck as the glowing amber sun beat down on us. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw our competitors lined up alongside us. It was the moment we had been preparing for over the last 5 years. Our goal was crystal clear and I had visualised this very occasion countless times.Read More
I believe I can bring the War for Talent to a peaceful end. I came to this realisation two
months ago after I was invited to present at the ‘Corporate Travel and Technology
World' conference in Shanghai. The topic, "Selecting Potential Leaders and Turning a Company from Good to Great", was
provided some months earlier, giving me time to source opinions from
around China. Read More
