Organisational culture has been the “secret sauce” in the success of social media management systems company Hootsuite since it opened its first office in Vancouver in 2008, according to its head of HR for APAC, Sabrina Jaksa.
“At Hootsuite, values such as being egoless, entrepreneurial, adventurous and passionate are part of who we are,” said Jaksa, who explained that this helps tie the company together through having like-minded people who also act as brand advocates.
“It is important to focus on our people as we grow and expand further as a company. Employees can be great brand ambassadors on social media platforms once they are empowered with the relevant social media skills and knowledge,” she said.
“Social is deeply ingrained in Hootsuite’s DNA, we have seen some great success from using social media to recruit and retain some of the best talent in town.”
“We coined the hashtag #HootsuiteLife as a way to be transparent about our company culture across social”
As a company that specialises in social media management systems, Jaksa said social media is integrated in its HR efforts for recruiting, on-boarding, recognition, performance management and brand management.
“For instance, we coined the hashtag #HootsuiteLife as a way to be transparent about our company culture across social.
“This hashtag’s content continues to grow from the ground up; our employees post tweets and photos that show potential candidates who we are and what makes Hootsuite unique,” she said.
“We want to use this hashtag to localise employee branding, and help tell the story of Hootsuite by making sure all our employees’ voices are heard on social.
“We spend a lot of time making sure that we build social media as a core competency for every role in the workplace, including HR.”
To help foster and continue building a strong socially-savvy workforce, Hootsuite provides employees with tailored social and digital training, and all employees go through its own “Hootsuite University” social media training course with social media certification during their induction period.
“This is to ensure all our employees are empowered to use social media; how it can help them in their job, how it can affect their careers, and how it can provide better product training to their customers,” said Jaksa.
“Using social performance management tools to track and measure our employees’ performances are an integral part of our HR processes”
Weekly or bi-weekly one-to-ones with managers and performance evaluation systems also play an integral role in talent management, and she said Hootsuite employs a simple yet effective social-based employee performance evaluation to help support individual and team growth.
Jaksa said it gives employees ownership in telling their own stories, and this provides continuous feedback for the management team’s review.
“This allows people at all levels to receive and provide feedback and recognition in a timely manner,” she said.
“It is important to create an ongoing dialogue and communicate in real time with our employees, as it allows us to be transparent in our communication with them, and also make sure we are constantly connected with them on an ongoing basis.
“When done correctly, it provides employees recognition, development, and retains them throughout their career and we hope, into new career heights.
“As we live and breathe social, using social performance management tools to track and measure our employees’ performances are an integral part of our HR processes,” she said.
For the full interview with Jaksa and story on how HR drives growth within Hootsuite, see the next issue of Inside HR magazine. Image: Hayden Brotchie
