Social media has been helping many companies drive improved performance to their bottom line. Now, in a world where companies are in hyper-growth, employers are focusing on driving higher performance & engagement from their employees with the use of social media and it’s having positive effects such as giving employees purpose and a space for finding like-minded people, faster innovation sharing ideas, and improved communication to employees.
At FlashStock, social media helps drive higher engagement and participation from employees which enable them to be more connected through virtual based channels, share information through virtual bulletin boards, and to quickly collaborate on ideas and obstacles. When asked about the benefits that social media has brought FlashStock Brett Mellon, COO, said that “the beauty of social media is the timeliness and efficiency that it brings teams. Traditionally lots of information was researched in order to uncover areas that needed improvement. Now the organization is connected and it is easier to see the response from employees and pivot because that is what happens in high growth companies.”
Social media gives employees a way to connect and be part of an online community lending them a voice to be part of the team.
At a recent townhall, Mike Domazet, VP of Global Sales said that he, “likes growing something and that being part of the team that is helping to grow a company motivates him.” Social media helps create and inspire that community. Especially when employees aren’t always sitting next to each other and off in remote locations or running from meeting to meeting. At FlashStock we use Slack to help create topic specific and sometimes role specific channels or chat boards so that employees are getting the right information shared or filtered to them and can interact much easier and respond in short form helping improve the communication process. Channels such as “Players Only” for sales team members to discuss deals in play, or other concerns and challenges that the member can bring up and get input from the whole team. This helps the team work together at solving problems for each other, and with continuous learning improvement, which is more efficient than all 20 or so sales reps bombarding management with sometimes the same concerns or challenges. Another example of a channel that is a bit more fun but creates a community, is the “whats for lunch” channel for foodies and people who like to try new things and places to eat during lunch. The connectedness of the platform helps hightlight the diversity and helps accelerate growth within the company.
The community feel doesn’t stop there. During a recent corporate-wide system rollout, employees were all notified through a “General” information channel that they would all need to login and create profiles when they received an email. This helps to keep employees engaged that something will be coming there way and to look out for it. The successful role out is based on employees completing the necessary registration tasks. Traditionally this sort of information would be posted on a bulletin board, which may not get looked at, or sent by email which likely would get lost with all the other information coming in. Knowing ahead of time that an employee needs to keep an eye out helps the team rolling out the system achieve their goals on time and move quickly to other priorities.
This quick communication through general chat channels or more personalized/direct conversations also has a direct effect on innovation. Being able to collaborate quicker for teams to iterate faster has helped better understand client needs faster than ever before. Having all the information flowing to the right people and captured in one place means that it is easily searchable so leaders don’t need to go and find it in their emails or be part of the virtual conversation that is happening on what client feedback is on products & services delivered and how we can improve.
Lessons for Others
Overall the need for social media within a growing startup like FlashStock is really useful to help drive performance from employees, it creates community efficiency through to wider company announcements. Finally with the ability to capture information for innovation and development of the product to meet client expectations and drive higher revenue. The company that is connected and works together is able to achieve greater things. As the saying goes, “it takes a village”.
Organization:
FlashStock Inc.
Industry:
Technology
Name of Organization Contact:
Mike Domazet - VP Global Sales
Authored by: Linas Ruslys
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