Q

Study had stated the purpose of the proposal and the limitation of the proposal & analysed demonstration of the topic

Home, - Using Social Media in the Workplace to Communicate Woolworths

Introduction

As the staffs actively utilize the social media in their own lives, internal communications systems could be utilized be same attitudes to form an effective communication among the staffs at every organizational level. Most of the firms have blogs on their websites, and the internal communication systems have to deliver more general communication among the leaders. This system has to be brilliant and constant for their content so that the staffs could exchange meaningful data, information, motivation, and inspiration. The internal communication system has to impress the staffs in such a way that they would go in that organization only. Without the proper application of the internal communication system, the social media will not be able to make the organization effective, successful and technologically advance in the present market.

Background

There is no doubt that the behavior of the peoples have changed due to social media from the past few years. Though most of the companies are not utilizing social media like LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest and likes the employee engagement, several companies are implementing the aspects of social media to make their organizations successful and are planning to add them for their internal communications and learning forums (Leonardi, 2017). Most of the employees and even the managers and the leaders are trusting social media to share information or other information related to the projects. Social media has been demonstrated in different methods by Woolworths for communicating and distributing information for the service of various purposes.

Context

As a brand, Woolworths has an extensive reach to the customers as it is the largest retailer in Australia. The largest Australian supermarket and retailer is Woolworths only after BHP Billiton in term of $60 billion revenue in the year 2014 (Treem et al., 2015).  Woolworths has almost 880 stores all over Australia with most of the people of Australia live within the range of 10 km from the stores. It has the record of selling their products of more than $1.2 billion through online at the end of June in the year 2014. It had increased up to 50% in that year from the year 2015. It is one of the most sorted online wholesale business all around the world based on their per capita.

There are several methods to utilize social media in Woolworths. Whether the individual is a manager, business leader, team member or an HR expert, social media can be a platform for bringing the workplace together. It can increase the sharing of communication and information specifically to encourage input, cooperation, and distribution (Feeney and Welch 2016). When the questions come of utilizing social media for cooperation and distributing information, it is a great method to engage the staffs and managers from every positions and level in Woolworths with the aim to share news, data, and resources. In Woolworths, social media is a powerful equipment for interacting, specifically with an involved customer when the question comes to communicate through mobile. Now a day’s most of the employees and the managers interact by social media both for the personal and the professional purposes. The problem of the business leaders is that the not sufficient information and cases are shared in the mainstream media. So they support the utilization of social media for communication and sharing of information for the business. The customers are also in the support or the interaction and distribution through social media. An average staff of Woolworths spends almost 2 hours in a day for interacting on mobiles and 1.6 hours in a day on a computer. The 3.6 hours in a day spent in utilizing technology is mostly connected with their work, except the 50% of mobile works which are related to the social media.

Woolworths took a long time to join the social media bandwagon. The retail company does not have an account in Twitter till the year 2010 and the company also introduced a fan page in Facebook in that same year. Woolworths had considered to utilize social media for the sake of reaching the GEN Y and GEN X. Actually, Woolworths was utilizing it formally for their business for an extended period of time, but they had introduced it freshly for the employees(Parveen et al., 2015). But they are keeping track on their staffs that do not spend most of their time in utilizing Facebook. Beside to attract the staffs of future generations, Woolworths is also utilizing social media to give information to their customers regarding the opening of their new stores and specials weekly offers. Woolworths is very popular in the online business world just like the Macy’s of America or Tesco of London with about 800,000 followers in Facebook with almost 6% of the users of Facebook out of 14 million Australians(Kissel and Büttgen, 2015). The page is regularly updated, and images of food, special offers, videos, and product information are provided to the customers. Though most of the content of this page is mostly typical, the involvement of Woolworths with their customers is pretty impressive. Most of the posts are liked and shared by many peoples. Woolworths is performing better on Facebook as their Facebook fan page is receiving many comments in every minutes and mostly complimentary messages.  Though it is hard to say about their intentions, but it might be due to give the best experiences to the consumers in their stores. This strategy might be to build a goodwill with the consumers, and the only place where the consumer return their favor is Facebook.  

In the year 2017, Woolworths was declared as the third best social media platform on the continent and best retail, social media platform by Ornico, a media firm, and Africa Brand Index.This award was declared by the board of African leaders of the African Brand Index. The Woolworths was ranked on the well-known social companies of the continent on the basis of performance of the social media around the leading social networks of the world; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube(Ngai et al., 2015).Woolworths was proud of the efforts of the employees which has created their presence in social media and clients are connecting with their works. The Woolworths is the client of The Media Image (TMI) who had announced that they were proud of their teams who had worked hard for Woolworths to help and reach the aimed and tailored advertisements. It was intended to reach the clients of Woolworths in South Africa and Africa. They had a great feeling that as an agency they were sharing the success and the celebrations of this award. It is also the evidence that TMI and the Woolworths have a strong bonding between them as an agency and client.20 social media channels of Woolworths are operating in almost 15 nations, along with the combined calculations of 2.2 million followers and attracts nearly 400,000 communications in one month(Gruzd et al 2018). Beside a vital channel for the customer care, the Facebook page of Woolworths in South Africa alone is reaching over 1 million customers of South Africa each week. Woolworths also got an individual award, due to the reason that Woolworths is neither a broadcast channel nor a content channel. It is a wholesale retailer who was explained as outstanding for recognizing their clients, people, content, its products and all other things that are considered to be as social.

Social media has improved the involvement and productivity of the staffs in Woolworths.  As an equipment of communication and sharing, the social media is specifically vital for the team members those who work from distances either from other ends of the office or the other ends of the planet.  Various teams of Woolworths are working across multiple time zones(Upchurch and Grassman, 2016). Different timetables are maintained due to different time zones, family conditions or maintain a balance between personal and professional lives. Still, the work is conducted, blogs are published, and deadlines are met. But all above this, the staffs of Woolworths work together and efficiently interact due to the power of social media. More than just helping in communication, social media keeps the staffs involved and satisfied at work, where the staffs spend more time than their families. They work, share and communicate with each other in those who are part of Woolworths, although it is changing each day. In Woolworths, the remote staffs are more involved than their office employees. 30% of the employees are involved more than the office staffs which is estimated to be 20%(Ali-Hassan et al., 2015). The remote workers work more and have more productivity with the primary way of interactions are related to work are mailing, meeting, calling and utilizing the social media.   

The most vital changes in the business world are in the field of communications. Not only the communication instruments has changed, but the faceless communication equipment has also turned to a different tone and depth of interaction. An email could instantly transfer a message to Woolworths, whereas social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter could share messages to an extensive network of staffs. Many opportunities are bought by this to Woolworths along with some problems. The managers face the difficulty to control these messages and develop the employees and the business(Roshan et al., 2016). Social media is a good medium to have a private interaction between the manager and the staff than to have a face to face interaction. This strategy has to apply beyond the social media and also consists of email and text messages. Though the manager might be satisfying to provide the job direction to the staffs through text messages, it is definitely not the means to utilization of discipline or fires a worker.

The new employers are utilizing Twitter and an organization blog to interact with the customers when they faced criticisms of being not in touch with their customers. After Woolworths faced the debts of $385 million, it was consequently purchased by Shop Direct Group. It was planned by the new owners to launch the company as an online-only retailer and took decisions that social media would the most efficient means for the promotion of their product. GlueLondon and Brooklyn Brothers were appointed by Woolworths for the involvement of social media. In order to interact with the clients and to get the feedback, both the applications were utilized. The blog provides the pick and mix sweets as a desert and made safe online browsing for the children and started receiving lots of comments from the clients(Donelan, 2016). Twitter was utilized to analyze the demand of the great and different offers of their brands. The customers were asked to rank the top five goods of Woolworths. 

Many newspaper or journals have generated the news of the loss of Woolworths due to the utilization of social media and other communication mediums like the email or text messages. But there are also reports that had highlighted that social media in offices is important for hiring and retaining the young employees as well as in the promotion and development of Woolworths(Ellison et al., 2015). Both the attitudes might be correct, but the problem with the managers is to maintain the concentration of the staffs at their work at hand instead of the gadgets at hand. If the employees are not motivated enough by the managers, then blocking the social media accounts could not solve the issue. Woolworths have a clear rule which states to utilize the social media in a required limit and could not break the law.

Conclusion

The report had stated the purpose of the proposal and the limitation of the proposal. It has also analyzed the topic "Using Social Media in the Workplace to Communicate" Woolworths has been considered as an organization. It had stated the application of the social media as a communication in Woolworths. It had also provided a context of the Woolworths and demonstrated the application of social media in Woolworths. Moreover, it had provided the outline of the proposal that Woolworths could adopt to improve their communication through social media.The internal communication systems help in quick decision making, easy association with the projects and better recognition for the staffs to do the better job.

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