In the context of HR and Social Media, what are the benefits and risks of social media use in the workplace? In your response, consider the HR functions of Recruitment and Selection, Training and Development, and/or Performance Management. 

Answer:

In the not-so-distant past, recruiters and staffing managers pored over resumes, posted vacancies on job boards and hosted expensive job fairs to find candidates. Now, the use of social media sites is pervasive in the recruitment function, with 84 percent of surveyed organizations using social media for recruitment. 

Social media sites can be used for informal networking, mining for talent or simply posting openings. For example, employers can use social networking sites to post challenging technical questions and then contact respondents who provide the best answers.

Recruiters can use relationship management tools to build and track relationships with passive job candidates who are not currently job-hunting. New recruiting applications designed for smartphones, tablets and other devices can let recruiters create better online searches or exchange information easily. Social media allow creation of specialty recruiting sites for specific industries. Employers are also using Twitter to announce employment opportunities to job seekers who subscribe to the company's Twitter feeds. See Social Recruiting Goes Viral and Social Networking Websites Popular as Employer Recruiting Tool

The use of social media in recruitment carries legal risks unique to the social media environment. For more about these risks, see the "Legal Issues" section below. Organizations that do not include social media in their business strategy run the risk of losing relevance in the market. 

there potential issues created when employees use their personal social media accounts while at the office, possibly affecting productivity, data security and network security. "Friending" and other contact among employees on social media can open the employer to possible legal issues. Even the social media use policies that employers write to help control use can pose legal issues if poorly written or administered. HR in many organizations is taking the lead in developing, communicating and enforcing social media policies and on keeping tabs on the changing legal landscape of social media.