How Hong Kong employees can cultivate success through social software

A company is only as good as its people. That might seem common sense to most managers. However, it seems that many fail to ask themselves one important question: “How can I ensure the company does all it can to help our employees reach their full potential?”

It’s a question managers should consider when they evaluate their company’s tools. Even good employees can perform better when they are equipped with useful tools. Just as a think tank needs the right tools to gather and analyze intelligence to generate insightful reports, every company needs the right tools to harness data and make the informed business decisions that will help them succeed. Companies need to equip staff with systems they can manage and work with effectively; tools that will help boost productivity and achieve the best possible results for the organization.

In hyper-competitive markets like Hong Kong and Singapore, raising productivity is critical for success. Hong Kong reached 9th place in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index 2012-2013, and made it to 2nd place just behind Singapore in the rankings of Asian markets. The dynamism and efficiency of Hong Kong’s goods market (2nd) and labor market (3rd) further contributed to the economy’s strong overall positioning -- two areas where Singapore beat other top Asian economies. Is Hong Kong starting to lose its competitive edge against neighboring Asian markets? What are the key areas the city should focus on to stay competitive and relevant in the future? These are questions Hong Kong managers need to consider when they assess their company’s competitiveness.

In this age of Facebook and Twitter, iPhone apps and online gaming, it’s only natural that information workers expect to be equipped with tools similar to those they are using in their personal lives. Yet, traditionally, enterprise systems are a far cry from the engaging, interactive tools we use to interact with our peers on a daily basis. Businesses could benefit massively from taking the collaborative aspect of the way we connect with our peers online and use this to implement similar systems to get the most out of employees at work.

The emergence of social software presents an opportunity for savvy IT leaders to exploit the groundswell of interest in informal collaboration. Instead of promoting a formal, top-down decision-making initiative, these IT leaders need to tap people's natural inclination to use social software to collaborate and make decisions.

There are a number of social initiatives already being encouraged by business, such as Google Docs and Yammer, which have built on the idea of sharing information online in a consumer realm and have deployed it within the workplace. In fact, Forrester Research predicts that the social software market will reach a value of more than US$6 billion by 2016, so the move towards collaboration in the office has already started. And yet, while these initiatives have worked well in some organizations, they have struggled to take off in others. What makes the difference?

The truth is, when it comes to getting the most out of business tools, employers need to realize that each member of their team will have their own way of working and collaborating. With the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend now well entrenched in the enterprise, employees take it for granted they can use their own gadgets at work. The individual’s preference needs to be understood and in most cases accepted and the organization should ensure employees have technology that advances their contribution to the company and makes them more productive.

After all, collaboration requirements depend on place and time. If an employee can be in the same place at the same time as the people they need to work with, then it’s possible to meet face-to-face. Yet, if you are available at the same time, but are in different locations, you need tools, such as phones and web conferencing, to facilitate remote interaction. If you need to work with someone but can’t be in the same place or at the same time, you need tools to support asynchronous collaboration – this could be anything from blogs to wikis, email and threaded discussions.

Users simply don’t want tools where they have to think in a certain way to find the information they are looking for. Instead, they want tools that will stimulate and support their natural way of thinking – following their thought processes and helping them to make discoveries that they might not have even been looking for. For example, when someone wants to discover something online at home, they can conduct a Google search and then find themselves captivated by following a series of links on numerous pages, sharing anything particularly interesting with friends. Thirty minutes later they realize they’ve ended up somewhere completely different to where they started out, but have discovered a lot along the way.


This should be the same with a business tool – in an ideal world it should follow a users’ train of thought and be truly agnostic so the user can work as effectively as possible, becoming entranced by their discoveries. Along the path of discovery, they need to be able to securely share what they have found with others in the organization so they can encourage debate and, ultimately, make sure everyone is sufficiently informed to make the best business decisions. Of course, giving employees tools they enjoy using will also make them happier at work, which is a massive benefit when it comes to retaining valued staff.

The software and systems we use to conduct our work need to be more in tune with the user today than ever before. Employees are far more familiar with technology today than ever before and it’s important that the tools they use in the workplace are similar to the technology they love using outside work. Otherwise, organizations run the risk of missing out on the discoveries that can be made by empowering employees to interact with data and learn in an environment they are comfortable with.