Social Media: Opportunities and Challenges for Human Resource Management

Social Media is primarily internet and mobile tools allowing people to share, collaborate and publish information. Over the last couple of years, the availability and usage of such tools has emerged substantially and led to a cultural shift, connecting people and allowing them to collaborate in ways that were not possible otherwise. To embrace social media tools seamlessly in the organizations can be a real challenge for human resource management professionals. The specific contribution of this paper is to take a relook at the opportunities which social media tools are able to create for the organizations in terms of learning and collaboration. Living and smooth working in a non-hierarchical network is still a big hurdle for organizations and can be a challenging task faced by human resource departments. This paper presents the foundational components of social media linked with human resource processes and lays the groundwork required for companies to harness the potential of social media in the long run. The ultimate objective of human resource departments is to be ready with a shift in their competency and skill sets by embracing a high degree of “technological readiness”, adaptability and positive attitude towards these new social media tools. An exhaustive literature survey presents the analysis of the paper. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1601-1.ch024