Companies, Employees, and Social Media requires Trust

Jeremiah Owyang's post raises issues for many businesses.

"In this new world, where Social Media is going to be part of many of our communication fabrics, we need to establish trust, as the lines are never going to be fully black and white"

Many businesses try to build processes that remove trust from the equation. I hear examples everyday. My best friend works for a company that blocks employee access to personal email accounts and I speak with people in our industry each week who work for companies where managers hoard information for fear of an employee gaining some "secret" and leaving to become a competitor.

For Bond, our employees, clients and candidates are all sharing the same social media space on Facebook, Linked In, My space etc...and Jeremiah has hit a bulls eye as it relates to our strategy for achieving our organizations objectives. He writes:

"As a result, trust has become more and more important, and we need to consider the following (as it’s not going away)

1) Companies: Hire the right employees that have integrity, sound business judgment, and know how to communicate both internally and externally
2) Companies: Trust in these employees to be your ambassadors to the world, give them the benefit of the doubt, and let them self-correct amongst themselves...
3) Employees: Those out in the social sphere should act their best, demonstrate your ability, and try not to embarrass the company. If you do make a mistake, quickly apologize, correct the mistake. Always act in an ethical manner."

The culture of an organization is defined by it's people (at every level). This fact has never before been more significant. In consideration of this, I am motivated to enhance our ability to communicate the characteristics at our foundation.

For me to want to come to work everyday I need to work with people who share a dedication to integrity, excellence in service, desire for knowledge, openness for innovation and take pride in their ethics. Our challenge is to maintain our culture while we grow. If we are timely in our ability to identify and rectify issues that threaten our values then we will be in a better place, if not, then we will have aspirations that are not achieved.