I recently had the honor of being a panelist at the recent HRP-MN Spring Conference. The conference title was Post Recession Strategies: Regroup - Retain - Recruit. A few days later, I attended the HR Tomorrow Conference and led one of their breakout sessions. The HR Tomorrow Conference theme was The Changing Face of HR: Navigating in the 'New Normal'.

The Clear Theme

It is obvious that the HR procession, and I dare to say business as a whole, is trying to develop strategies for recovery and sustained positive growth. HR is concerned about keeping their best talent at a time where employees are clearly tired and feeling 'beat up.'

But social networking?

A topic that was brought up repeatedly at the HRP MN Conference was Social Networking. At the HR Tomorrow Conference, Social Networking was not only brought up but it was also the topic of one of the breakout sessions. There seemed to be two sides to the topic as it was addressed:

• using social networking in recruiting
• watching out for the legal issues surrounding social networking

The OTHER side of the social networking equation

The legal concerns were many. One theme, however, was what some employees were saying about their employer and/or supervisors on their Facebook (or other) page. I submit to you this is something employers should be equally concerned about. There are multiple websites that current and past employees can use to anonymously post comments, reviews and, in some cases, ratings about their current or past workplace. (These were listed in our last Blog entry - but need to be repeated again for what I think are obvious reasons.) Here is a partial but expanded list:

• JobVent.com
• PingMyCompany.com
• Criticat.com
• JobBite.com
• Getunvarnished.com
• Glassdoor.com

Candidates (and current employees) are checking these out. You should be too!