One of the greatest fears companies have for ‘Social Media’ is ‘Haters will Kill our Brand’.
Here is a story in two parts.
I run a practice of architects which has offices in two small towns. In each of these towns there are probably between 5 and10 significant architects practices (i.e. more than 2 people) and around 100 architectural staff at most.
I estimate that at least 50% of these employees have worked in more than one of the offices.
Face it. They all know each other.
But it goes beyond this.
One of our employees came to us with a good reference from a fellow consultant. When some of the contractors we work with found out he was an employee of ours, they got very excited and told us how great he was. They then started recommending us to clients they hadn’t told us about before, clients that they knew would work well with this new employee.
This employee has Social Capital. You see, they do all know each other. And this is GOOD.
It is our choice whether to use this quality in our staff to benefit our business, or stamp on it with restrictive technology.
I know who I’d rather work for – how about you?
Thanks to BL Ochman’s What’s Next Blog for the idea and image.
[…] It is sobering to think, if you are a business owner, that your employees probably know employees in many other firms in your town or city. They meet in the pub when you aren’t there. They send each other text messages. They talk about what it is like to work for you. This is happening now, and it happened 20 years ago when I did my year out in Liverpool. That hasn’t changed, its just that now your employees can find people of common interest and friends in different towns and countries. And their conversations are visible. […]