Workplace learning through social media: a study of human resources employees in Turkish companies

Abstract

In an organization, all employees should be up-to-date about their field and the recent developments. Within all these fields, it can be said that Human Resources (HR) is one of the most important areas. It is expected from HR professionals to develop themselves continuously, be up-to-date on global HR implementations and innovations, and be constantly interacted with other HR people globally. This study examines how HR employees learn through social media by analyzing the tools used, frequency of usage and the information gathered. Also, the contribution of social media tools to HR employees’ professional development comparing to other information sources is examined. Furthermore, the differences among age, gender and sectors (retail, finance, and telecommunication) are inquired. The results of the study indicate that the use of social media is quite widespread among HR employees and it could be stated that social media tools have an important place in work-related learning. The most used social media tool is Wikipedia, following that LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube, Google Plus, Facebook, Ekşisözlük, Twitter, and Pinterest are more often preferred by HR employees. The most important situation to which social media contributes in daily workflow is the pursuit of innovation related to the work field. Also, it is concluded that women used social media for learning more frequently than men.