Social Media and Job Training

With the advent of social media and its prominence within the business sector, many companies and corporations are gravitating toward the utilization of it in job training and career development. The rationale behind this is that social media provides certain characteristics to job training and the workforce that would otherwise not be present. For example, marketers trained in social media will have a better grasp of how to effectively market their brands. Essentially, social media is an enhancement mechanism that allows the business sector to industriously grow and connect in an ever-changing and ever-expanding technological landscape.

Klein, Hall, and Laliberte (1990) stated that effective job training "should achieve at least two important objectives. First, it should facilitate learning how to use the system and second, training should positively shape employees' attitudes about the new technology" (Klein et. al, 1990). Social media in job training then has both pros and cons. As prevalent as Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, Pinterest boards, and Google+ circles are, companies and corporations need to assess whether imbibing these facets into their corporate structure is a viable recourse for employee productivity. These will be issues for human resources. Some of the benefits of social media as it relates to job training are that there is a social dynamic that thereby hones in on the employee-manager relationship as conversations can be had on Facebook groups, on Twitter, and in the aforesaid Google+ circles. Video chat becomes a plausible recourse in employees making the connection and engaging themselves in the company that they work for. Webinars can also take place as well. 

Yet, there are problems with these. Marler et al. (2006) studied the incorporation of new technology and the consequences of employee acceptance of such measures. Based on the study, there were learning retention and training decay problems in the mandatory implementation of new technology (Marler et al., 2006). Basically, through the use of social media and other new technology, employees were not retaining what they learned in job training because it was in essence too much to learn and try to comprehend. Could standardized training be more successful and effective than an onslaught of new technology being integrated? 

Therefore, companies and corporations must consider whether social media/technological platforms such as Hootsuite, Vimeo and YouTube, and others are conceivable options to assimilate into their training structure. While the advent of social media has been a nice societal pleasure, much discussion needs to or should be had as to whether it is the end all be all for employee progression.

References

Klein, K. J., Hall, R. J., & Laliberte, M. (1990). Training and the organizational consequences of technological change: A case study of computer-aided design and drafting. In U. Garttiker & L. Larwood (Eds.), Technological innovation and human resources: End-user training (pp. 31-79). Greenwich, CT: JAI. 

Marler, J. H., Liang, X., & Dulebohn, J. H. (2006, September 6). Training and Effective Employee Information Technology Use. Journal of Management, 32(5), 721-743.

Werner, J. M. & DeSimone, R. L. (2012). Human resource development (6th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western, Cengage Learning.