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Culture: More Than Just an HR Thing

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“Company culture shapes every minute of the workday and every decision that is made.”-Taylor Smith, CEO & Cofounder of Blueboard.

What is culture? I consider it the collective mindset and attitude of your employees about what they do, which manifests itself in how they do things; in other words, their actions and behaviors. These behaviors manifest themselves in their interactions with your company, your customers, and other associates or staff.

This mindset – the one your staff brings to work everyday – determines how they will take care of your customers, how much effort they will put into their work, and whether or not they will stay with you long term.

The mindset and attitude of your employees plays a significant role in how they will perform at work. How someone feels about coming to work affects his or her energy levels and cognitive abilities. The impact of a negative culture is tremendous. It can lead to poor customer interactions, high turnover, underperforming staff, and in turn, reduced profits. Depending on the size of your company the cost could be thousands, millions or even billions of dollars.

The research is clear across industries that when your employees are more positive your company is more productive and profitable. According to a Gallup study from 2012, organizations with engaged employees are:

  • 10% More Customer Service Oriented
  • 21% More Productive
  • 22% More Profitable

When you consider the numbers, culture is the most important consideration in business today. And as a result, we should reconsider the position and idea that culture is only the responsibility of your human resources team. Culture must be the focus and responsibility of every executive, owner, and manager in your company.

I often hear owners, executives, and managers argue against investing in their staff.

Here are a few of the arguments I most frequently hear:

  • We have to remain focused on our customers and their experience –after all we are in the customer experience economy. While customers are important I would argue, we are in the employee experience economy. The talent war is over, talent won, and as a result if we do not take care of our best and brightest people, another company will. And if you take care of your employees and they feel good about whom they work for and what they do, they will naturally take care of your customers, anyway.
  • Employees (especially young ones) don’t work hard anyway so why give them more? The reality is, this generation, just as previous generations, have the capacity to work very hard; it’s just that the new generation of workers don’t see the value in investing in a business that doesn’t invest in them.
  • The employees will just leave, anyway. To this I say, maybe they will, but if you want any chance to keep your best and brightest, then you have to provide them a better employee experience than they received in the past.

If you are focused on profits and productivity (and let’s face it, who isn’t?) then you must be willing to deliver a better employee experience to positively impact the mindset and attitude of your people coming to work. Culture is the most important thing in business today, so every owner, executive, and manager must keep it front and center in everything they do. Remember what author Stephen Covey said, “The main thing is to keep your main thing the main thing.” Make culture your main thing.

Resources:

Understanding Company Culture
How to Understand Your Company Culture

Photo Credit: Françoise Challard Flickr via Compfight cc

Why You Can’t Afford to Skimp on Employee Engagement

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We’ve all heard the case for employee engagement—higher engagement levels lead to greater employee output, increased productivity and favorable business outcomes. So why do so many leaders treat engagement like just another task on their to-do list?

The short answer: historically it’s been difficult to measure and improve engagement real-time. When confronted with understanding engagement and what drives it, organizations seldom know where to start. And the traditional methods for understanding how engagement data translates into employee loyalty and performance have generally provided outdated information leading to non-impactful action and, ultimately, missed business outcomes.

Employee engagement is the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional commitment of an employee to an organization and its goals. An engaged employee possesses a deep understanding of what it takes for the organization to succeed and is willing to go the extra mile to help the business get there. She is not working for the paycheck, rather the success of the organization, and will go “all in” as a result.

Engagement Positively Affects Your Bottom Line

Why does this matter? The value of engagement is often considered a soft strategy (a ‘nice to have’ versus a ‘need to have’) and has long been understated due to a lack of knowledge around its fiscal benefits. However, it’s not only an advantage to have loyal employees that are willing to go above and beyond, but organizations can also harness this enthusiasm to promote strong business outcomes. In fact, those businesses with engaged employees outperform those with low employee engagement by 202 percent. Additionally, organizations with a highly engaged workforce experience a 19.2 percent growth in operating income over a 12-month period.

Engagement Directly Reflects Your Brand and Impacts Customer Loyalty

Employee engagement benefits the external face of a business. While a paycheck is sometimes enough of an incentive to get an employee to show up on time, promoting an engaging culture and  empowering employees to make independent decisions that will positively impact the customer experience will drive increased business outcomes. Many studies have shown a direct and positive relationship between employee engagement and customer loyalty; companies that deliver a better customer experience enjoy stronger business results. And they gain a competitive advantage when they promote a seamless brand experience through “all-in”  employees.

“All-in” is a term that can be explained through the displayed excitement, enthusiasm and happiness of an employee or group of employees, and it shouldn’t be underestimated. These positive feelings are palpable to customers and convey a sense of energy and optimism. Emotion makes people act. We all understand this. If a customer is greeted by a disgruntled employee, that customer is likely to take their business elsewhere. Conversely, if a business’s first touchpoint with a customer is an engaged employee willing to go the extra mile, that goes a long way to build a customer’s satisfaction and loyalty. Take In-N-Out Burger for example, which has an average of more than 4.3 stars on Glassdoor. Yes, In-N-Out Burger has a popular product, but its core focus is on empowering its people to provide world-class customer service. By fostering internal empowerment and engagement, In-N-Out then reaps the benefits of exceptional employee engagement with a high degree of loyalty to the organization from its customers.

How to Measure Employee Engagement

While the benefits of employee engagement are clear, measuring these efforts might seem more ambiguous. The common practice of annual engagement surveys typically represent a “box-checking” exercise, and have run their course as a means of engaging people . They have done little to actually empower employees to do better in their roles. It’s true traditional surveys may offer visibility into engagement across the organization, but they provide outdated information and offer little guidance in terms of what the data has to say. To take action from survey data that will have real and positive impact, the right people – managers and leaders – need real-time insights into the health of the organization, including indications of where the biggest obstacles to success lie at any given time. Beyond that, leaders and managers need the guidance and a framework to take specific action to improve focus areas. Traditional survey methods simply don’t provide these insights in a timely and relevant manner.

The field of people analytics is opening the door to better data, as well as the guidance to improve. With emerging technology and artificial intelligence, we have the ability to end the “one-size-fits-all” approach to talent management and instead promote individual success. Glint for example, uses real-time insights to give organizations access to the most current data while highlighting strengths, weaknesses and trends. The insights provided help uncover critical challenges and promote continuous improvement, leading to better business outcomes like increased customer satisfaction.

Employee engagement is essential to every business. With $11 billion dollars lost annually due to employee turnover, it costs businesses not to invest in their workforce. Additionally, the direct correlation between individual employee success and customer satisfaction make it impossible to treat employee engagement as a “check-the-box” exercise, but rather should be viewed as a key strategic component to any thriving organization.

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#WorkTrends Recap: Be Your Customer’s Hero

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Too many organizational leaders are scared of employee empowerment, often coming from cultures of command and control; fearing what can happen if they give up that control.

However, the greatest customer experience companies empower their teams to solve issues in real-time, resulting in more satisfied customers and fewer escalated issues.

On this week’s #WorkTrends show, our special guest, author and customer service expert, Adam Toporek spoke about customer service examples from Starbucks, Ritz Carlton and his own experience as a small business owner.

Here are a few key tips Adam shared:

  • It is crucial for employees to remove the hassle from customer service
  • Empowered employees are more dedicated to their jobs and more satisfied with their work
  • Empowered employees are more confident and it shows in their customer interactions

Missed the show? You can listen to the #WorkTrends podcast on our BlogTalk Radio channel here.

You can also check out the highlights of the conversation from our Storify here:

Didn’t make it to this week’s #WorkTrends show? Don’t worry, you can tune in and participate in the podcast and chat with us every Wednesday from 1-2pm ET (10-11am PT). Next week, on Aug. 31, host Meghan M. Biro will be joined by Mike Lindstrom to discuss the impact of meaningful communication.

The TalentCulture #WorkTrends conversation continues every day across several social media channels. Stay up-to-date by following the #WorkTrends Twitter stream; pop into our LinkedIn group to interact with other members; or check out our Google+ community. Engage with us any time on our social networks, or stay current with trending World of Work topics on our website or through our weekly email newsletter.

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#WorkTrends Preview: Be Your Customer’s Hero

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Too many organizational leaders are scared of employee empowerment, often coming from cultures of command and control and fear what can happen if they give up that control.

However, the greatest customer experience companies empower their teams to solve issues in real-time, resulting in more satisfied customers and fewer escalated issues. Our special #WorkTrends guest Adam Toporek will speak about customer service examples from Starbucks, Ritz Carlton and his own experience as a small business owner.

Come learn these tips about how to Be Your Customer’s Hero:

  • How smart empowerment does not mean giving a blank check or giving up all control. It is a business decision based on analyzing risks and rewards.
  • Why empowered employees are more dedicated to their jobs and more satisfied with their work.
  • Why employee empowerment is one of the most powerful techniques for preventing poor customer experiences from occurring or escalating.

This one-hour live podcast and Twitter chat between Host Meghan M. Biro and Guest Adam Toporek on August 24 at 1pm ET is not one to be missed

Be Your Customer’s Hero

#WorkTrends Logo Design

Tune in to our LIVE online podcast Wednesday, Aug 24 — 1 pm ET / 10 am PT

Join TalentCulture #WorkTrends Host Meghan M. Biro and guest Adam Toporek as they discuss how to be your customer’s hero.

#WorkTrends on Twitter — Wednesday, Aug 24 — 1:30 pm ET / 10:30 am PT

Immediately following the podcast, the team invites the TalentCulture community over to the #WorkTrends Twitter stream to continue the discussion. We encourage everyone with a Twitter account to participate as we gather for a live chat, focused on these related questions:

Q1. How can empowered employees provide better customer service? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q2. What are the keys to great customer service? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q3. What can make you a loyal customer forever?  #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Don’t want to wait until next Wednesday to join the conversation? You don’t have to. We invite you to check out the #WorkTrends Twitter feed, our TalentCulture World of Work Community LinkedIn group, and in our TalentCulture G+ community. Share your questions, ideas and opinions with our awesome community any time. See you there!

Join Our Social Community & Stay Up-to-Date!

Passive-Recruiting

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Customer Experience Starts with Your Employees

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Providing a great customer experience creates sustainable competitive advantage and higher profits. Here’s why that starts with designing a great employee experience — and how to do that.

There’s a solid argument to be made that “customer experience” isn’t just another business buzzword. As products, stores, and services increasingly begin to look alike, customer experience will increasingly define and differentiate a brand. Features, quality, and even price are (relatively) easy to match. Customer experience — not so much.

The term is (almost) impossibly broad, covering potentially everything from design, packaging and promotion through the sales transaction, use, reliability, and customer service.

Is the product thoughtfully designed and easy to use? Is the service easy to get set up with, and (at least for the most part) reliable? Does the offering provide good value for the cost?

How easy is an organization to do business with? Do new customers feel welcomed? If something does go wrong with the product or service, can the issue be resolved quickly, pleasantly, with a minimum of hassle? Is it easy to get questions answered?

The objective of providing great customer service may seem too broad to be anyone’s responsibility. Actually, its scope makes it everyone’s responsibility.Every employee — not just those who are “customer-facing” — has a role to play in optimizing the customer experience, from design to assembly to marketing, installation, billing, repair, and anything else that can impact the customer’s experience with the product, service, store or brand.

Which is why providing a great customer experience starts inside the company, with providing a great employee experience. Research has shown that happy employees make for happy customers.

Part of this pertains to the interpersonal aspects of management. Managers who are responsive to workers and value them demonstrate to employees they should be responsive to and value the company’s customers. This is why enterprises like Zappos, Southwest Airlines and Marriott are known both for their highly engaged employee culture as well as great customer experiences.

But there are more practical elements to providing a great employee experience as well. For example:

Employee onboarding: is there a smooth, organized process in place to onboard new employees, so everything is in place for them to be productive from day one on the job?

Employee provisioning: are there systems in place for employee provisioning that make it easy for workers to obtain anything needed to do their jobs, from equipment to furnishings to office supplies?

Shared services: is it easy for employees to request services like system access, printer repair, PTO, getting a broken window fixed, etc.? Are back-end fulfillment processes automated to deliver internal shared services quickly?

Having solid processes and systems in place in these areas models the importance of optimizing the new customer onboarding process and being responsive to customer needs throughout their ownership and use of the product or service.

But it also makes employees more productive. By removing distractions and impediments to employees performing their job tasks, such processes and systems enable staff to focus their efforts on their role in creating a great customer experience (rather than “babysitting” their requests, managing cumbersome manual processes, or waiting for and wondering where the service tech is).

As choices in nearly every product and service category proliferate, providing a great customer experience is what will make brands stand out. Want to be one of the winners? Start by providing a great employee experience.

A version of this post was first published on Medium on 10/19/2015

Learn to Love Your Customers

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On its face, this is a ridiculously high standard, but in practice it’s the most rewarding and resilient way to build a business. Working with and for customers that love your company — rather than hate it or couldn’t care less — is simply a more satisfying way to spend the 60% of your adult life that is work.

When they’re crazy about you, they’re generous with ideas, perspectives, praise, and referrals. They’re resilient when you come up short (as you surely will) because one problem rarely empties a deep well of crazy love.

In the long haul, it isn’t harder to create this kind of engagement than it is to have mediocre relationships that don’t last, that can’t absorb the inevitable shortcoming, that require outright fire fighting or that inspire your customers to pit you against your competitors. However, It is a clear strategy and requires dedicated execution; it won’t happen by accident or luck.

My short list of values and behaviors that inspire crazy customer love is below — I’d love to here what’s on your list!

  1. Add genuine value in each engagement and touch point. Help people rather than sell to them. Leave out the self-congratulatory stuff; never thank or pat yourselves on the back and expect the customer to clap.
  2. Put customers first. Not second, never last. It is all about them, and even you are about them. They are your right to exist as a company and the return on that existence.
  3. They’re individual people — engage them that way. Connect to what they need, worry about and care about as humans. See that they have futures and pasts.
  4. Be authentic and human yourself, but make it your best self.
  5. Let compassion for users guide products, sales and messaging if you provide products for business customers. It’s work not vacation; you can’t really help customers without compassion.
  6. They’re your company’s family. That family doesn’t end at your employees — it ends at the customers that share their time, ideas, and intentions and that make career investments with you.
  7. Care about each customer. Celebrate when they decide to join the family and mourn each and every one if they leave. Bring everyone in the company into this celebration and mourning.
  8. Recognize that working with customers is pure joy, even when it’s not all rosy. It’s how you know you’re working on something worthy and it’s how you learn to grow your value to them and others. Let these thoughts nourish your soul and your company’s.
  9. Demonstrate and assume intelligence and integrity. With this platform for partnership, you will have a perfect relationship even when you or they are imperfect.
  10. You will fail and it will be problematic for your customers, but how you respond will define your relationship for years to come. Rise responsibly, quickly, and with even more integrity and compassion for their situation and you will be friends for life. Fail at failing, and you’ve lost a customer as soon as they can practically leave you.
  11. In my experience, every person at your company must act with this belief system. Crazy customer love comes when every facet of engagement — yes, even bill collecting — functions with the same commitment to customer.

I’ve had the great pleasure of working with amazing teams that embodied this belief system and of working with wonderful people as customers over many years as a result. (Sonia Cheng, Scott Cohen, Mike Meehan and Nicholas Tsang top the team list.) This is the strongest thread in the company’s fabric, weaving together your company’s financial success, your customers’ success and your cultural health.

What’s your experience when you’re the customer? the provider? an employee? What’s on your list?

 

#TChat Preview: A World Gone Social And The Power Of OPEN

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The TalentCulture #TChat Show will be back live on Wednesday, January 7, 2015, from 7-8 pm ET (4-5 pm PT). The #TChat radio portion runs the first 30 minutes from 7-7:30 pm ET, followed by the #TChat Twitter chat from 7:30-8 pm ET.

Last time we talked about how to make waves and initiate positive change, and this week we’re going to talk about a world gone social and the power of OPEN (Ordinary Person | Extraordinary Network).

Thankfully, the Industrial Age is gone, and finally so is autocratic, dictatorial leadership style that came with it. Today’s business world has entered a new era—one in which social media has fundamentally changed the way companies innovate, market, scale, build teams, and serve customers.

Welcome to a world gone social!

Companies that build socially enabled teams and put the customer experience first are the ones with the competitive advantage today.

Join TalentCulture #TChat Show co-creators and hosts Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman for the first show of 2015 as we learn about a world gone social and the power of OPEN with this week’s guests: Ted Coiné, Chief Relationship Officer of Meddle.It and Forbes Top 10 Social Media Power Influencer, and Mark Babbitt, CEO and Founder of YouTern, President of Switch and Shift and a co-founder of ForwardHeroes.org.

Sneak Peek:

Related Reading:

Meghan M. Biro: Go Social Or Go Home: How Leaders Can Win in 2015

Shiyang Gong: Does Tweeting Impact The Bottom Line?

Peter Brooks: Social Media Marketing ROI — The Business Value Of Friends, Followers And Connections

Gail Moody-Byrd: Break the Social Value Chain In 2015

Russ Carpenter: What’s The Real Business Value Of A Social Media Following

We hope you’ll join the #TChat conversation this week and share your questions, opinions and ideas with our guests and the TalentCulture Community.

#TChat Events: A World Gone Social And The Power Of OPEN

TChatRadio_logo_020813#TChat Radio — Wed, January 7th — 7 pm ET / 4 pm PT Tune in to the #TChat Radio show with our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman, as they talk with our guests: Ted Coiné and Mark Babbitt.

Tune in LIVE online Wednesday, January 7th!

#TChat Twitter Chat — Wed, January 7th — 7:30 pm ET / 4:30 pm PT Immediately following the radio show, Meghan, Kevin, Ted and Mark will move to the #TChat Twitter stream, where we’ll continue the discussion with the entire TalentCulture community. Everyone with a Twitter account is invited to participate, as we gather for a dynamic live chat, focused on these related questions:

Q1: We live in a world gone social. What does that mean? #TChat (Tweet this Question)

Q2: How do open networks of partners, collaborators and competitors enable business authenticity and agility? #TChat (Tweet this Question)

Q3: Can brands be relentless givers to their employees and still drive business outcomes? #TChat (Tweet this Question)

Until the show, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed, our TalentCulture World of Work Community LinkedIn group, and in our new TalentCulture G+ community. So feel free to drop by anytime and share your questions, ideas and opinions. See you there!!

photo credit: xJason.Rogersx via photopin cc

Employee Communication: 4 Ways to Engage

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A Too-Familiar Story

Let’s say you’re trying to buy a jacket online. There’s a problem with your purchase, so you call customer service, and they put you on hold. (Waiting…) Finally you reach a robot voice informing you that the call center is closed. You really want the jacket, so you persist.

Hours (or perhaps even days) later, you connect with a live representative who is unable to offer the assistance you need to resolve the problem. What seemed like an easy problem to fix has become a headache, a time-suck, and a shadow over your relationship with the company. Not only is this jacket transaction in jeopardy, but the next time you’re in the market for clothes, you’re likely to shop somewhere else.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

So, what really happened in this scenario? The company failed in a critical way — it did not provide clear pathways of communication and support to resolve your issue, at the moment of need. The brand has lost credibility with a “ready-t0-buy” customer, the company has damaged its relationship with you, and the outcome will translate into lost revenue now and perhaps in the future.

How does this customer experience story translate to the human resources side of business? The audience may be different, but the takeaway is identical: For both customer and employee engagement, communication is vital — especially when issues arise. Just like customers, employees want the ability to ask question, discuss problems, offer constructive feedback and propose suggestions. They want to feel that their concerns and ideas are heard and addressed.

These are the fundamentals of employee engagement. It is HR’s job to support engagement in the workplace, from end-to-end, and clear lines of communication are the most effective way to accomplish that.

4 Workplace Communication Strategies

When I think about my own experiences, both as a customer and as an employee, it’s easy to remember the times when I felt I was heard — or not. Based on those experiences, here are my top four communication strategies for boosting engagement:

1) Be Available:  To improve the way an organization works, employees need a champion — someone on the inside to share suggestions with. It doesn’t matter whether this ambassador is a manager, an HR representative, a colleague, or event a group of peers. What matters is that there is clearly a door through which individuals can bring questions, concerns and opinions.

2) Listen To My Needs:  Don’t be too quick to dismiss new ideas. Every employee has a unique perspective, and although every suggestion won’t be feasible, each one should be valued. Suggestions reflect your employees’ individual experiences, and therefore, represent part of your company’s culture. Validate ideas by acknowledging contributions, as well as the spirit behind them.

3) Be On My Side:  Every team needs a leader whom they can trust to represent their best interests. And every employee needs a champion who will be their advocate, even in their absence. When you demonstrate support for others, you reinforce their value within the organization. No one likes to feel unimportant — from there it’s a short step to disengagement.

4) Find A Solution:  Not all feedback can be put into action — sometimes for very good reasons. However, leaders and employees can work together to examine the root causes of a key issue, or to integrate appropriate elements of a suggestion, or to brainstorm and investigate other solutions. This follow-through shows employees that their voices matter.

Have you tried these or other communication techniques to improve employee engagement? What worked for you? Share your experiences in the comments area below.

Image Credit:Stock.xchng

Communities of Practice and Purpose: #TChat Recap

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“Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to.”
―from “Speaker for the Dead” by Orson Scott Card

I imagine that anyone who participates in the TalentCulture community agrees with this quote. Whenever any of us invests time or talent in #TChat events, social channels or this blog, a bit of our identity becomes connected to something larger than ourselves.

Of course that’s not unusual. The rise of the Internet has made community membership a common occurrence. In fact, “community” has become a buzzword for any group of people that uses digital technology to interact. But many business-related communities are much more than just loosely connected people. They are, like TalentCulture, communities of practice or purpose.

Here’s how social learning expert, Etienne Wenger, defines Communities of Practice: “Groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do — and who learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” It’s important to keep in mind that this proccess of continuous learning isn’t necessarily intentional. It’s also important to remember that, although communities may start as a flash of inspiration, they must be cultivated. They require consistent presence, clear communication and sufficient resources to function and flourish.

Not every virtual community is a community of practice.  What differentiates them from others? According to Wenger, there are 3 critical components:

  • DOMAIN = shared topics of interest (e.g. today’s “world of work”)
  • COMMUNITY = members + their relationships (e.g. #TChat/TalentCulture social media connections)
  • PRACTICE = channels and collective body of knowledge (e.g. chat archives, video and audio interviews, blog commentary)

Want deeper insight into how you can get value from a community of practice? Watch this energetic, idea-packed video by Nancy White, who is passionate about the care and feeding of communities!

How do these community of practice concepts extend to enterprise communities? For insights and inspiration, check out our stash of resources from this week’s #TChat Forums. Throughout the week, experts challenged us to think in new ways about familiar community concepts.

#TChat Week in Review

SAT 5/25

Maria and Jeff

Watch video interviews in the #TChat Preview

#TChat Preview + Sneak Peek Videos: Our Community Manager,  Tim McDonald, framed the week’s topic in interviews with our special guests, Maria Ogneva, Director of Product Marketing at Salesforce Chatter Communities, and Jeff Willinger, Director of Collaboration, Social Computing and Intranets at Rightpoint consulting. See the preview: “Finding Value in Enterprise Communities.”

SUN 5/26

Forbes.com Post: TalentCulture CEO, Meghan M. Biro considered how business organizations can effectively apply community management principles and practices in her Forbes column, “5 Ways Leaders Empower The Social Enterprise.”

TUE 5/28

TChatRadio_logo_020813

Listen to the #TChat Radio show recording

#TChat Radio: Maria and Jeff joined our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman to examine key issues and opportunities associated with the care and feeding of digital business communities, in “Why Enterprise Community Management Works.”

WED 5/29

#TChat Twitter: As we do each Wednesday, #TChat-ters took to the Twitter stream to share ideas, concerns and opinions — this week about enterprise community best practices, with Maria and Jeff leading the way. Were you in on the action? If not, or to review highlights, watch the slideshow below:

#TChat Twitter Highlights: “Finding Value in Enterprise Communities”

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Closing Notes & What’s Ahead

SPECIAL THANKS: Again, thanks to our guests, Maria Ogneva and Jeff Willinger. We’re inspired by your insights and passion for cultivating purposeful business communities!

NOTE TO BLOGGERS: Did this week’s events prompt you to write about digital communities? We’re happy to share your thoughts. Just post a link on Twitter (include #TChat or @TalentCulture), or insert a comment below, and we’ll pass it along.

WHAT’S AHEAD: Next week — we’re shifting gears to look at the hiring process from the candidate’s perspective. How have employers improved about the hiring process — and what could be improved? You won’t want to miss it!

But until then, the World of Work conversation continues each day. So join us on the #TChat Twitter stream, or on our new LinkedIn discussion group. And feel free to explore other areas of our redesigned website. The lights are always on at TalentCulture, and your ideas and opinions are always welcome.

See you on the stream!

Finding Value in Enterprise Communities #TChat Preview

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(Editor’s Note: Are you interested in reviewing all of this week’s events and resources? Read “Communities of Practice and Purpose: #TChat Recap.”)

If you know me, then you know that I’m passionate about communities — digital and otherwise.

My interest in cultivating communities is what drives me as manager at HuffPost Live and TalentCulture, and as the founder of My Community Manager. It’s incredibly gratifying to help people build useful relationships, and to facilitate an ongoing exchange of ideas that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

Digital communities aren’t just a nice idea. They’re also a huge potential source of business value for enterprise organizations, according to management consulting firms like McKinsey. Yet large companies often struggle with how to connect the social dots among their various constituents — employees, leaders, customers, business partners, and beyond.

What Makes a Great Enterprise Community?

Of course, great networking and collaboration tools are helpful in creating and sustaining any kind of social community. But it takes much more than a solid infrastructure. What does it take? That’s the focus of our TalentCulture #TChat forums in the coming week. And we’ve invited two experts to lead the conversation:

#TChat Sneak Peek Videos

Both guests briefly joined me for a G+ Hangout to set the stage. First Jeff defined key terms — explaining how enterprise communities differ from other social networking groups:

And then Maria explained why communities are essential in today’s business environment:

#TChat Events: Why and How Enterprise Communities Work

Need I say more? As you can tell from their interviews, these two experts are just as passionate as I am about exploring the benefits of business-oriented communities. And they’re eager to exchange ideaTChatRadio_logo_020813s with a circle of like-minded professionals. So please join us next week, and add your unique perspective to this very special “community” conversation!

#TChat Radio — Tuesday, May 28 at 7:30pmET / 4:30pmPT — Maria and Jeff join our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman, for a LIVE 30-minute discussion about enterprise community issues and opportunities.

#TChat Twitter — Wednesday, May 29 at 7:00pmET / 4:00pmPT — Calling all #TChatters to join us for an open online discussion on the #TChat stream. Come on over and share your thoughts. The more, the merrier!

Q1: What are the differences between social and enterprise communities?

Q2: Why has community development and management been more difficult for the enterprise?

Q3: What are best practices for enterprise community management?

Q4: What can business leaders and internal champions do to facilitate quality enterprise communities?

Q5: What community & collaboration technologies make sense for today’s enterprise?

Throughout the week, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our new LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.

We’ll see you on the stream!