I’ve just finished listening to one of my favorite industry podcasts, HR Happy Hour. [If you're not listening to this terrific show, be sure to check out the archives by clicking here.]
Toward the end of this week’s program, Mary Ellen Slayter – senior editor of SmartBrief on Workforce – reported live from SHRM’s 2010 Employment Law and Legislative Conference. When asked about the event’s take on social media and human resources, Mary Ellen sadly conveyed that discussions covered the use of social media to spy on employees, the blocking of popular social media sites and the general risks to broad adoption and overt employer permission. This, she said, was perpetuated by the lawyers in attendance as a warning to any employers contemplating their social media strategy.
Although initially perturbed, I began to ponder why we are so easily drawn toward such preposterous overtones. My conclusion? Fear.
But not just any kind of fear. Whether aware of it or not, the science at play here is referred to as “fear appeals”. These are:
“… persuasive messages designed to scare or frighten people with consequences of not complying with a particular message. A Fear Appeal utilizes fear to manipulate the perceived susceptibility and severity of a threat to a recipient in order to motivate significant attitude, intention, and behavioural change.” ~ Sources: Witte (1992); Witte and Allen (2000)
I was surprised to learn about this process and felt it nailed the general concerns surrounding social media in the workplace. Digging deeper, the applicability of this technique is staggering when applied to the risk adverse culture of most employers. This is described under the construct of what Witte calls the Extended Parallel Response Model. Stay with me here people….
“When individuals want to control danger, they typically think about the fear appeal or persuasive message and try to diminish the threat. Typically, individuals exposed to fear appeals think carefully about the recommended responses advocated in the persuasive message and try to follow the advice of the persuasive message in order to control the danger.” ~ Source: Witte (1992)
So, in this case the “advice” of the persuasive message is to block social media access. This allows organizations to control exposure to the alleged danger. But it gets worse…
“On the other hand, when individuals try to control their fear, they stop thinking about the fear appeal or the danger of the threat; rather, they focus on how frightened they feel by the persuasive message. These individuals try to get rid of their fear through denial, defensive avoidance, reactance, or cognitive dissonance control.” ~ Source: Witte (1992)
Denial. Defensive avoidance. Reactance. This is what I heard in Mary Ellen’s report. So what do we do to overcome this?
As suggested by the callers of HR Happy Hour, we must tell stories to quell the innate and magnetic appeal of fear. It is only through the adaptive behavior of witnessing those around you conquering their fear (with no horrific consequences) that we can break through HR’s natural inclination to put up barriers to adoption.
What do you think? Is fear appeal at work or are there are factors at play? Beyond storytelling, how do we overcome this negative and visceral reaction to social media adoption? Share your thoughts below and let’s keep the conversation going.
14 Comments
I think one of the best things we can do is to keep engaging in social media to generate more positive examples, stories, and results.
Some of this, I think, is that while ‘change’ in general has long been an aspect of corporate existence the type of ‘change’ that the use of social networks and social media represent to those people in positions of power in organizations looks unlike anything they are accustomed to. The last 20 years or so the major disruptive changes (re-engineering, total quality management, Six Sigma), did not really ever threaten to alter the fundamental relationship between workers and management. The ‘new’ world of social media and social networks, where everyone can essentially participate equally, that tends to break down (or at least weaken) traditional hierarchies, and by its very nature demands a loosening of managerial control has to scare many of those in positions of power and authority. The lawyers that speak to the SHRM meetings with their doom and gloom warnings serve to validate what these kind of leaders want to hear, the employees are loose cannons, they can’t be trusted, and better to keep them focused on wringing one more percent of cost savings out of the process. Eventually, one hopes, these old models will prove to be less successful than newer, more innovative and enlightened ones. Time will tell.
Thanks for the kind words about the HR Happy Hour show!
I don’t know about fear appeal at work but I do believe that organizations struggle to give such “open ended with less/little organizational control” tools to employees in the workplace.
-The arguments appear similar to the ones offered when employees started using e-mail or when they began requesting company intranet/internet access in order to work at places other than the company’s worksite. Corporations were faced with letting company knowledge outside the four walls, where they believed they had control.
-Social media appears to be play…which is not allowed at work (or so the saying goes). This argument is similar to the argument used when computers were introduced into the workplace as many organizations used the game of Solitaire to help employees get comfortable with the keyboard and build their keyboarding skills…now these skills are acknowledged as critical to company productivity.
-Most organizations are built around the 20th century organizational model of GM where information/connections follow the org chart…the thought that information flows every which way with little command and control, especially social media tools, seems “foreign” to the standard organization information flow plan.
-Revenue streams for law firms have shrunk with the recession…social media is the new hot area and attorneys have dollar signs in their eyes because of the rapid growth and perception that social media is the new “wild, wild west”…unregulated and without “rules”.
Just my quick thoughts. As the number of employees get very comfortable with social media and begin to apply its use in creative, innovative ways to solve organizational problems and communicate across the global organization, it will move to the main stream and the lawyers will need to look for a new revenue stream.
So timely Mark. I was in a local SHRM chapter meeting for a presentation on Social Media. To start with, one attorney wa snot aware of Twitter until she prepared her preso and the second is not active in soc med at all. The presentation started off on the context of fear and what can go wrong with social media in an organization. Unfortunately I had to leave midway so I did not have an opportunity to see if the time changed or to comment.
How to change that? Don’t let that message be the only message that people hear. I contacted the chapter president offering to present a counter point on the benefits and uses of social media. Like HR Minion says above – keep generating and communicating the positives.
We need to be the voice of reason.
We must be on the same wave length or something my friend. This has been something that has been bugging me enough to write a post about too (http://rehaul.com/why-you-should-be-screwing-up-in-social-media/ — shameless, I know).
Lawyers, consultants and gurus who advise based on fear are missing it. Ignoring the massive opportunities that exist for robust communication, collaboration and learning all because some sissy lawyer tells you that there might be some risk is just foolish.
Having worked at a company that had 4 lawyers on the board I know first hand how difficult it is to get social media accepted in a company.
Social media does present a risk to any company. Any comments, ideas, thoughts, postings, etc. are, to quote one of our board members: “discoverable evidence.” Their point was that if a company has these tools in place they are bound to archive and manage that data should any legal issues arise. No different than email or old fashioned snail mail.
From a lawyers point of view – that’s a risk.
The key is leadership and how they view the risk-reward equation.
Does leadership see the benefit of connecting and leveraging the intellectual capital of a connected and engaged workforce over the risk.
I don’t think it’s fear of the unknown as much as the inability to calculate that risk reward equation. If you could tell a CEO that social media would generate an incremental 10 million dollars – and feel certain it would – they could weigh that against the potential risk (lawsuits, etc.)
It’s no different than any other decision in a business. Unfortunately at this point it is much much easier to identify the risk of social media than it is to define the rewards.
Some companies have made a leap of faith and will be the pioneers that develop the equation needed for other companies to jump in.
this is bigger than social media!
Attorneys are trained specifically to identify potential problems and find ways to mitigate them. Business and life, however, don’t grow through risk mitigation, they grow through risk TAKING.
Biz today is heavily slanted toward mitigation… Which makes soc media particulalry scary: it represents a potential loss of control over customer communications, internal communications, hiring communications… In short, it potentially upsets the apple cart in any organization driven chiefly through the control of information… Ie, orgs driven by fear and risk mitigation.
Which is most of them.
So tell your stories, for sure, and then do more: bring others into the fold. Make them part of the conversation, even if all they have to add are questions like, “how do you…”
we are doing more than espousing social media here. We are combating fear.
This seems to be a big theme this week… I hope it stays that way!
i just read a post about this topic, and i’m going to pull a quote that may just be behind the fear:
“The emergence of social networks demands total transparency. Your employee and candidate experience will be reported on, not just by word of mouth, but also perhaps via twitter or Facebook.”
could some of the fear stem from companies sensing their actual employee/candidate experience won’t stack up to how they promote it?
f
the whole post:http://www.brettminchington.com/thinking/23-social-media/72-social-media-and-employer-branding-so-whats-all-the-noise-about.html
‘ False Evidence Appearing Real’, or ‘Flipoff Everything And Run’ F.E.A.R. in Arizona, a ‘right to work’ state, this is the tool of choice for many employers.
Mary K.Nelson, M.S. at: http://bilingualservicesllc.com
Actually, I don’t think this is about fear or social media. You’re talking about a group of EMPLOYMENT LAWYERS. This is what they do for a living – identify all possible risks in the workplace and warn you what could go wrong. I think the bigger question is, who is setting the social media policy? The hope is that the opinion of employment attorneys is understood as a perspective, not the final decision and direction.
It is usually the 5% that mess it up for everyone else.
I believe that their is validity in mitigation but often if all you preach is what will go wrong how can anyone discover what could go right.
Even more of what is happening is: the lack of understanding, willingness to understand and an inability to learn and use social media to build balance between leadership, management, employees and align them with the company, products and clients.
I think what many people miss in the entire HR, Legal and Social Media conversation is the Social Media, just like marketing, communications (whether internal or external) is ONLY a TOOL. I remember the fear mongering about the internet, email and even Youtube. Now that people are more comfortable, the hype has died down a little.
What’s gonna happen when facebook, twitter, 4square or any other tool dies… nothing… another TOOL will replace it.
It is usually the 5% that mess it up for everyone else. Don’t be that 5%
@BenjaminMcCall
Right on Mark! I believe it is our responsible as early adopters to help change that. I’m with you on the competitive advantage thing that we discussed as HR Evolution last year, but we’re past that. The social media divide is widening. How amazing would it be to bring people into the fold who respect and admire us while also understanding its proper use and benefits.
I admire any social media HR person who attended that conference. I don’t think I could have kept my mouth shut. As in, they would have had to escort me out. I got quite animated at SXSW during a session with a Google Recruiter.
Jessica
@blogging4jobs
Bravo Mark and to all the people at that SHRM event representing the positive side of using social media. Companies need to realize that whatever they fear me saying on Twitter, FB, or a blog, I could just as easily type using my company e-mail address and send out to masses of people.
You have to treat employees like adults. If you trust them enough to put a phone in their hand or give them access to e-mail, then social media is not any more dangerous.
Mark,
Having recently come back into the HR world from data security (Symantec’s Data Loss Prevention Division), I saw A LOT of the fear mongering as the media jumped all over data loss and identity theft incidents (Heartland Payment Systems, TJX,etc.) that effected millions. Interesting to note that about 95% of data loss incidents were actually due to employee negligence, not “data theft”. So whether it is attorneys or chief security and risk officers, another channel (social media) to be protected and made idiot proof against malware attacks and data loss, does create increased fear and worry. There is always a difficult balance between risk mitigation and allowing creativity and business efficiency to flourish. That said, your point is spot on, those decisions should not be based on FEAR of anything, but a balance between the risk versus and benefits to the business…transparency and creativity are powerful business drivers when unleashed wisely.
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