BUSINESS

Social Networks as Innovation

in HR Marketing?

The theme for the current issue is innovation and the topic of this interview is innovation in HR

Marketing. We discussed this with Jiří Kratochvíl from the Ostrava-based communication agency

DIGITaal, which deals with HR marketing issues daily. How can social networks help you with

recruitment? What sort of stance should we adopt towards social networks and are local companies

well versed in using them? These questions and others will be answered in this interview.

It is said that employees lose up to 500

hours a year due to an inability to use

new technologies. How do you quickly

and efficiently support the digitization

of companies?

This may simply be my subjective opinion,

however, I believe that it is important to

identify routine activities and automate

them. At DIGITAAL, we turn these routine

activities into processes that are easily

duplicated within our project software.

These can include recurring tasks that

have to be done for clients in essentially

the same manner each week. For example,

recording new employees, ones that

have left or those that are onboarding.

We automate reports for clients, which

previously took up around ten hours

a month and, thanks to this, saved those

ten hours. The list goes on. Recently, we

underwent a DigiAudit conducted by the

Moravian Silesian Center for Innovation,

measuring the level of digitization in

companies, and DIGITAAL passed with

flying colors. The expert found that our

levels of digitization in data transfer, task

transfer, etc. were well above standard,

and our processes well optimized. In

my opinion, the first key step towards

implementing technologies should be the

usage of a system for directing projects

and the identification of processes that

can be easily duplicated. This allows

you to quickly gain an overview of your

projects and easily start up new ones.

Thanks to cloud systems, it is also then

no problem to work from wherever,

whenever while maintaining contact with

your team.

How are social networks being

developed now? Is there perhaps

a network that could help with, for

example, employee recruitment?

The world of social media is being

developed every day. We operate in a very

dynamic field, which sometimes makes it

hard to keep up with all the innovation.

With the increase in companies’ success

and decrease in unemployment comes

a growing pressure towards employee

recruitment. What we know to be typical

employment platforms are often not

enough anymore and so social media

serve as a great addition to traditional

recruitment channels. We at DIGITAAL

devote a lot of time to social media and

therefore are able to deliver our customers

something that is much more than simply

a link to a career listing; we offer them

direct contact information of specific

candidates that want their information

displayed. In conjunction with our precise

targeting and great creativity, this allows

our method, which we call HR mining, to

work as a powerful competitive tool for

our clients. A great advantage of hiring

through social networks is that it gives

the company access to people that are

not actively looking for employment, but

will make use of an opportunity when it is

presented to them. These types of people

often do not browse job portals, however,

they can still be reached—through their

mobile phones, that is.

What is the method behind finding

good employees through social media?

There are multiple ways to go about

it, however, having a well-outlined HR

communication strategy lies at the core

of all of them. That means developing

the company’s brand as a good employer

through not only communication, but

also employees, brand ambassadors or

even advertisement campaigns.

Are companies becoming more brave

when it comes to investment towards

innovation, advertisement campaigns,

and social media campaigns than they

were before the crisis?

We are definitely seeing an increased

interest in this area. The current global

situation

significantly

heightened

a company’s need to be seen on social

media, and that is very closely linked with

the field of HR. Companies need to hire,

old methods are no longer sufficient,

and so they resort to approaches such

as communication through LinkedIn

and advertisement campaigns on social

media that boost the company’s image as

a good employer.

Mr Kratochvíl,

thank you for the interview.

Text a foto:

Jiří Kratochvíl

www.digitaal.cz

POSITIV 4/2021 ǀ 23