Will social media uptake see a hit in hard times?

By Alex Manchester, Editor, The Internal Comms Hub (Australia), Melcrum

There's a powerful contradiction in internal communications at the moment.

On the one hand, we see lots of stories on the topic of employee engagement. We're all very aware about it, it's been written about a lot on this blog, and it's even starting to gain traction in the mainstream press here in Australia and New Zealand. Engagement is everywhere. You may very well be sick of the term by now.

On the other hand, economic turmoil and downturn, job losses... could all signal the end of companies worrying about being employees being engaged, tough recruitment and.... spending time writing blogs, collaborating effectively or building networks on FaceSpace.

Earlier this week it was Melcrum's former head of research, Kieron Shaw, who first mentioned this, and it's kept me thinking.

In tough times it actually make more sense to be 100% focused on having the right people and talent, making sure everyone's "operating on the same page", building networks, and giving their all and more for their company. The added pressure of keeping your job gives everyone a kick in the right direction, but "do what you do even better and you'll emerge from the tunnel at some stage" seems to be the recommendation from experienced people.

Isn't the whole point of improved internal communications, ultimately, to improve the bottom line? Isn't all of the effort and work of improving employee-to-employee communication, collaboration, efficiency and more using social software also, ultimately, about improving the bottom line? In hard times should you not be looking to further improve these things?

There is an element if idealism here. I appreciate that. Belt tightening and "fat trimming" (a hideous phrase) are often necessities for shareholder driven companies facing profit warnings. Maybe the answer to the above is "yes, but the majority of our business can be better achieved if we focus on maintaining other areas."

However, if things were to go as bad as some are predicting, this will indeed be the first downturn/slowdown where the web and the richness of global communications, internally and externally, will be a critical factor in revival. There's even some suggestions that as fast as we end up in slowdown, we'll be able to communicate our way out of it because of the scale and quality of information available.

If your company and its employees disappear into a toughened shell, reducing collaboration and communication – and reducing innovation, engagement and business productivity as by-product – well, is that the right path to choose this time round?