I don’t know if foreign people have ever heard about Tchooze. Tchooze was a french site where people can talk about companies who hired them, saying what whas goog, what was wrong, giving advice to those who wanted to apply for jobs in these companies.
The fact was companies didn’t like to see their inner face displayed at the face of the world and Tchooze was shut down a few days after being bought by mediasystem who had “big clients” that where concerned by bad opinions expressed by their former employees.
The “my opinion on my employer” syndrom is now striking back. The “web 2.0” collaborative spirit, based on experience and information sharing scored the firts point, with people talking on their blogs. Some companies where afraid of that, others took this opportunity to talk differently and manage their “employer image”, taking benefit of the discussions on the web, creating their own blog, thinking that it’s interesting to learn what people think of you instead of ignoring it and acting as if nothing was happening.
I learned this week that Jobster was going to play a big part in this play by organizing such discussions based on their member’s experiences. The stake is great: managing the company’s image, learning from public opinion, show the real face of the company instead of the “official corporate side”. A great opportunity to improve HR strategy too.
What was innovating whith Tchooze is now becoming a strong trend and Jobster is the first major player in the HR industry who clearly gets involved in it.
The stake is clear for companies: they don’t master the game anymore so they have to deal with it, play with the new rules et work hard on their employer image if they want to avoid troubles. Neglecting this situation will cut them from what is the new reality of HR and corporate communication.
Talking about that…we (my collegues at Moovement and I) made a manifesto dedicated to companies who want to consider blogs as an HR communication tool in this new context. There’s a french and an english (yes!we’ve done it) version available here. If you’re not comfortable enough with french to read the whole page,you can download the english document directly here.
