By Patrick Gaul

According to Wikipedia, critical mass is a threshold value of the number of people needed to trigger a phenomenon by exchange of ideas. (Sorry Andy, our website / social media guru, you told me to avoid citing Wikipedia, but hey, this is an article about social networking.  I thought it was appropriate.) Anyway, it appears to me that social media has blown past critical mass. It is clearly a phenomenon. At what point though will social media be considered a mainstream tool for management? I believe it’s safe to say that we’re not there yet.

The Social Networking phenomenon was born because of teenagers on MySpace. That seems to be the excuse that most social media-phobes fall back on when explaining why they aren’t utilizing it. “It’s just a bunch of kids finding out where the party is.” In reality, MySpace did have a practical application for one industry, but the fact that MySpace is the music distribution method of choice for Indie rock bands throughout the world doesn’t exactly endear it to the MBA set. 

The fact that Ease@Work is blogging is proof that social media has reached critical mass.  When our target audience (anybody managing employees) starts reading this blog in large numbers and utilizing it to exchange ideas, I will believe that social media has reached critical mass as a tool for management. (Believe me, we’re not there yet. I’m patient though. It’s only been 7 months.)

I’m not so naïve to believe that the Ease@Work blog will ever be the go-to place for cutting edge management information on the Internet. There are some great tools out there though and you can connect with Ease@work on a number of them.

LinkedIn (LI) is, in my opinion, the best way to begin utilizing social media as a manager or HR person. I have been on LI for years and have met many great people. The magic of LI is the way in which it helps other people to help you. If you have a need for anything that somebody else in the world can help you to find, there is somebody in LI who has the answer. I have over 250 contacts and I am no LION (Linkedin Open Networker), meaning that I don’t accept invitations from people that I don’t know or have some sort of business or personal connection with. 

I utilize my connections to help others more than helping myself, and I never forward any information that I consider an unsolicited advertisement. If somebody has a valid business reason to reach out to one of my contacts, I will contact that person privately explaining the request. If they are not interested, I will politely tell the requestor that my contact is not interested. I would rather offend a salesperson than a valued business connection. (I have found however, that few people use LI to sell their product or service. To me, it is a genuine networking tool and most people understand that to use it for anything but networking will quickly ruin your LI reputation.) 

If you are interested in connecting with me on LI, follow this link to my profile.  You can also find other Ease@Work staff on LI, along with other potentially valuable connections.

Facebook is getting more useful as a business-networking site, but to me its strength is still in personal networking. However, I do like the fan page feature for business purposes and find it’s a great way to share information about Ease@Work. I especially like that you can tie your FB page to a blog. If you are on FB and want to know when Ease@Work has posted a new blog entry, become a fan of the Ease@Work FB Page.

The HR Net: For those of you in HR, if you are not familiar with Steve Browne’s HR Net, I encourage you to check it out. This is an old-school bulletin board where HR people can post questions for other HR people, or they can promote happenings in the HR community. Steve sends a weekly e-mail that begins with an entertaining HR related song parody, followed by a list of the new posts from the past week.

HR Net is a password-protected site. To get your password and a link to the site, e-mail Steve Browne at sbrowne@larosas.com. If you are looking to network within the HR Community, Steve is the guy to know in Ohio.

Ideas and people are two very important components in success as a manager. I encourage you to embrace anything that helps you build a network of people who can help you be successful in your job.

There are a million other ways to use technology to share ideas and meet new people. If you have any suggestions of things that work for you, please feel free to tell us in a comment. 

Employers have jumped on the health and wellness wave, understanding that keeping their employees healthy helps their bottom-line. These days, it’s an oddity if an employer hasn’t encouraged participation in a wellness program, encouraged employees to eat less trans-fat, eat more whole foods, exercise thirty minutes a day, take time for relaxation, etc.

Yet with all of our efforts, it is often that we see the same health-conscious group participate, while the rest opt out. You see, ultimately, most adult Americans don’t get their 5 to 9 servings of fruits or veggies, or 30 minutes of daily exercise. So we watch as disinterested employees continue with unhealthy habits – our hands tied as not to be the “acting physician” and overstep our boundaries.

As Managers, Supervisors or HR professionals, confronting an employee with our opinions about their unhealthy habits is out-of-line. However, we may have an avenue to get them turned around if, and only if, those habits are impacting their work performance.

Often, Supervisors ask:

“I know I can make a referral for absenteeism or anger management, but what if one of my employees has high cholesterol or blood pressure and I want them to see the dietitian?”

Or,

“I have an employee whom I am concerned about. He’s rapidly dwindling away and I’m not sure what health issues he’s dealing with. Can I refer him?”

The short answer is that if there is nothing performance related and the employee appears to be just plain unhealthy, then the answer is “no,” a formal management referral would not be appropriate.

However, if the employee has been missing work, requiring “down time” on the job as a result of feeling fatigued, or you are noticing lack of attention to detail, less productivity or anything else performance related, we may suggest that you consult with our Clinical Manager.

Americans are experiencing self-induced disease and mortality at an all-too-early age, and this directly effects the workplace. We care for our employees and want them around as long as possible. With that, even if there is resistance, we encourage you to continue to put healthy practices and initiatives into place.

But, for those instances when performance suffers due to poor health, possibly then, it may be appropriate to move forward with a “healthy” referral. Ultimately, a referral to the EAP may give the employee the resources to get them back to health… and back to working productively.

Ease@Work employee assistance program services can help HR professionals and managers/supervisors decide if a management referral is appropriate. A dedicated account manager offers personal and highly qualified consultation for your most difficult, and sensitive, employee issues.