• Internet Footprint Driving Away Employers?
  Social Intelligence Corp. scours one’s public online activity from the past seven years and reports it to prospective employers. Its CEO Max Drucker explains what specific data the company looks for, how often monitoring occurs, and what this means in terms of privacy concerns. Also joining the conversation is Electronic Privacy Information Center Senior Counsel John Verdi. Listen and Read

  Does YOUR organization check out potential employees’ backgrounds before hiring? What criteria do in include or exclude in that digital footprint search? Have you ever had your own digital footprint evaluated … what did you discover is out there?

• In Job Market, Are Gen Y’s Wants Out Of Reach?
  Over 40 million Americans are in their 20s, and they’re having a particularly tough time securing work. Their expectations may not match what their employers have to offer. Ryan Healy talks more about young job seekers’ challenges. He is the co-founder of a website aimed at helping young professionals network and share ideas. Listen and Read

  Do you find a gap between Millennials expectations of their work and your/the organization’s expectations of their work? What similarities and differences do you experience between your style of learning, communicating and working and that of your Millennial colleagues? Is your organization formally working on ways to attract, integrate and leverage Millennial workers?

Please share your responses below to these questions about social media and Millennial workers. If you are looking to engage these questions in your organization, Future Workplace offers keynote presentations, in-depth workshops and facilitated dialogues about these topics and more. Learn more about these topics and find out what leading organizations are doing now to address these challenges in The 2020 Workplace book by Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd.

Prediction 2: Companies Will Disclose Their Corporate Social Responsibility Programs to Attract and Retain Employees

The focus on people, planet and profits — known as the new triple bottom line —
will become the main way organizations attract and retain new hires. This will be critical because 80% of a sample of 1,800 13-25 year olds want to work for a company that cares about how it impacts and contributes to society. More than half also say they would refuse to work for an irresponsible corporation.

So companies will begin to move beyond corporate philanthropy by integrating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into their core business strategy, and by reporting quantitative goals to current employees, prospective hires and investors.

In the past year in particular, you can see Corporate Social Responsibility becoming more prominent in company strategies. Companies “going green” are seeing a difference in their bottom line and are making a good impression. (Read this New York Times article on sustainability translating to profits.)

This is already the case in Great Britain where the law requires companies to provide information and business goals for their CSR programs. For example, the Annual Report of National Grid, an international electricity and gas company, not only includes a review of all CSR projects, but also identifies quantitative business goals such as: achieving an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, having 15% of its energy demand from renewable sources by 2020, and defining a global inclusion charter for the organization.

But imposing a legal requirement may not be the real impetus that forces companies to report CSR programs. The Millennials and Gen 2020 will demand companies to be more socially responsible or risk losing valuable talent to a competitor.

CSR is a priority among Millenials. In in Magazine, Jenny Gomez writes that “the ‘Millennials,’ also known as the ‘Y Generation,’ are the driving force behind the trend to use the power of business to create a better world. They are civic minded and 78 million strong.” Companies developing and integrating CSR strategies need to keep in mind that the Millennials are a unique group that has high expectations for the products they purchase, the companies they work for and the companies with which they do business.

Companies are constantly under pressure to provide information pertaining to their CSR, whether the pressure comes from their own stakeholders, shareholders, employees or even the public, as seen in this Greenbiz.com article. (Greenbiz Group is a source for news, opinion, best practices and other resources on the greening of mainstream business.)

Corporate Social Responsibility

Forbes asks whether or not HR will adopt CSR practices this year. Millenials, it seems, will have some impact on the corporate world in the way of CSR.

Companies publishing their CSR reports include: PVH, General Mills and Verizon.

Questions:

How seriously do you take Corporate Social Responsibility?

Do you and the company you currently work for have similar views on the role of CSR?

Would Corporate Social Responsibility be a determining factor in choosing between jobs?

Prediction 1: Reputation capital will be the top currency in the 2020 workplace. This is the sum total of your personal brand, your expertise, and the breadth, depth, and quality of your social networks.

Reputation Capital Promotion

Companies will increasingly source, recruit and promote new talent based upon their reputation capital. This means looking for employees who not only have wide, deep and high-quality social networks, but also demonstrate a track record of turning these networks into increased business value for the organization and stronger personal brand for themselves.

Already some companies, like Best Buy, are listing reputation capital as a requirement for some positions, such as the senior manager in emerging media marketing. Some of the job requirements – developed via crowdsourcing – included having active accounts and a significant following on sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Plaxo, Ning, delicious, Slideshare, YouTube and PRWeb.

By 2020, hiring companies could very well make specific requirements that prospective employees have experience using these types of sites to further their business agenda.

According to Dr. Robert Cross, professor of management at the University of Virginia, high performers of an organization focus on building quality networks rather than large social networks. They may not know everyone, but the people they know, they know very well, and they invest in these relationships before they’ll actually need them to get their work accomplished.

What’s happened in the last year:

The launch of these two new companies in helping people build their reputation capital: cubedual and klout.

Questions:

Is reputation capital important to you?

Given the importance of reputation capital through social networking, should employers restrict/monitor social networking by employees?

Does your company rate reputation capital as important? Would they recruit or promote new employees based on their reputation capital?