Role of Social Media in Learning and Development

Running Head: Strategic Human Resource Development
Strategic Human Resource Development

Strategic Human Resource Development 1
Introduction
In the global economy, the way organizations are performing the activities of the business is total
changes along with this the human beings are also making use of the technology in their day to
day operations. Along with this, the use of the social media also involves the set technologies
and the channels that are targeted for forming and enabling a productive collaboration.
Moreover, the change in the working of the organization reflects that the companies are making
use of the social media channels which include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many other
channels. These organizations make use of the social media for branding an improving the
learning of the employees present within the company. In New-Zealand one of the largest
employees owned professional services consultancy company is Beca. The company is one of
the Asia-Pacific based company embrace with the technology. Melanie Hawkins who is the
learning and business partner at Beca make the learning more accessible and interactive for the
adults within the organization.

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About articles
The articles of the Cascio and Thomas and Akdere show that the use of the social media in the
branding marketing and for the corporate communication is increasing with the help of the
channels of the social media. The rise in the role of the social media is one of the ways through
which they can improve the workplace learning and the knowledge management. The training
and the learning within the organization take place in 3 categories which include structured,
unstructured and semi-structured. The social media platforms support include structured,
unstructured and semi-structured within the organization (Cascio, 2014).
The human resource department of the company in the world follow the different activities
which include hiring, discipline, payroll and training within the organization. The training of the
employees of the companies is also a responsibility of the Human resource development
(Thomas and Akdere, 2013). The HRD of the companies makes the plan in which they make use
of the social media while providing the effective training to the employees of the company.
According to the survey, there are 27% of the company who provide the social media training to
the employees who engage in the social media activities of the company (Gerard, 2018). The
name of the companies who provide the training such as Hilton Hotel, Marriott, Walmart, Tesco
and many others. There are different types of training that are offered by the companies to their
employees. These training include formal learning, no-formal learning, and the informal
learning. The company provides this training to their employees with the help of the social media
as this is the way to make the adult easy understands the company.

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Role of Social media in Learning
In the structured learning, the information is presented in front of the new employees with the
help of the presentation, offline slides, videos, documents, and many others. This is the learning
is also known as formal learning in which the learning has been provided to the candidates with
the face to face interaction with them (Dron and Anderson, 2014). On the other hand, there is
unstructured learning in which the training has been done with the help of the on-the-job
approach which is done with the social media. This learning will help the company as the
employees will lead to the rise in the productivity of the company. This learning is also known as
the non-formal learning in which there is no set structure. Some of the examples of the
unstructured learning include a peer coach or shadowing experiences; form a knowledge base
and the make the search easy (Cestari, 2015). The third learning which generally takes place
within the organization includes the informal learning which is known as semi-structured
learning. This learning takes place when the existing employees of the company get motivated
towards the work; learn something on their own and also when the company provides the
training for some specific project.
Structure/formal learning
The social media plays an important role in learning that takes place within the organization. The
companies get the instant peer-to-peer learning with the help of the social media channels which
include Facebook, Twitter, and Yammer (Pappas, 2016). This instant peer-to-peer learning is the
part of the structure learning. Cascio and Thomas and Akdere said that these social media
channels offer an opportunity to the learners with the help of which they can leave a comment
and converse on the real-time basis. Though, this learning might also lead to some negative
consequences.