HR Star: Rebecca Slosberg

One of the great things about this project is getting introduced to the careers of folks I don’t know very well. In this case, Rebecca Slosberg is a good person to get started with. And it proves that even a modest presence on social media can not only raise a person’s profile but also increase understanding in order to do the day job better. Isn’t that one of the promises of social media?

Having thousands of followers on Twitter or on your blog is great but making something of those connections is the most important. The person who nominated Slosberg said that she is the first person people interact with on social media when they are looking at jobs at her firm. But let’s get deeper into what brought her to this point.

Accidentally in HR

Like many folks, Slosberg fell into HR after college. “I knew from that experience that I was interested in an operational role, but I didn’t know what that was,” she said. “In my last semester of college I needed a job, as most of us do, and I found an HR assistant position with Eze Castle Software.” What she thought was a trip into the wading pool was actually a jump into the deep end of HR. “On my first day they gave me a bunch of passwords and said ‘go’.”

From her adventures of learning HR on a treadmill that Usain Bolt might train on, she learned that she had a passion for a couple key areas of HR. Employee engagement and utilization of technology were big time passions for Slosberg. She stated, “I am a huge tech nerd.” I can certainly relate.

These two passions led her to a big project: creating an internal workforce community.

Engagement + Technology

Slosberg was tasked with building an internal talent community for her organization. What does that mean? She writes, “Internal workplace communities, or as Jive calls them ‘Collaboration Software’, are basically a social media mixing pot, combining the functionality of blogs, wikis, discussion boards, even instant messaging and employee profiles (think Linked In) with your traditional company intranet.” She also states that it can help with six major talent management challenges:

1. On-boarding
2. Performance support
3. Informal learning
4. Workforce management
5. Internal recruiting
6. Alumni & retiree management network

If you have been paying attention at all to some of the major trends in employee-to-employee communication, you know that the technology grows by leaps and bounds every year. In fact, just last year I remember hearing Kris Dunn talk about using a private Ning social network to get much of this functionality without the huge investment. These can replace those old school company newsletters, broken intranet products, eliminate meetings and encourage better collaboration.

Results matter

What keeps pushing Slosberg is actually a non-HR, non-work person: her significant other who happens to be very involved in digital marketing. She said, “The projects that he has worked on and the ways in which digital marketing works has inspired me to bring that into the HR realm.” And it works.

Not only do these products encourage collaborative learning but they also give leaders a very visual look into how their teams work together. The technology is disruptive and requires change but it is worth it in the end. “By integrating marketing practices we are better able to get our employees what they want and need and create positive working culture, better engagement and development and in the end better retention.”

In the end, this is what we all hope technology helps us become: better at our jobs, giving resources to our customers that they want and delivering a positive work environment.

Learn more

Read Rebecca’s blog or follow her on Twitter. And make sure you ask her for a recipe or two as she is an accomplished cook as well!

The HR Stars Series is sponsored by Rypple, social software that makes feedback easy and fun. Our software is built around people, not process, which means teams actually get things done. Managers don’t waste time. People get the useful feedback that they want. Teams stay on track, learn and adapt faster, and get recognized for great work. Learn more at http://rypple.com.