Impact of Enterprise Social Networks on Employee Engagement in MTS Company from Ukraine - Research Paper Example

Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) is an emergent technology that offers consistent and effective communication among employees at the workplace. However, most employees in companies have limited or no access to secure company systems provided by Enterprise Social Networking (Fidelman, 2013).  Zets (2013) argues that despite these systems being secure, BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Device) compliant, and available to employees through their smartphones, there is still a disconnect between enterprise social networking and employee engagement. Gallup (2012) solicited employee feedback in an extensive study of a hotel chain and found that the employees lacked meaningful engagement and access to adequate information. The research company later implemented an employee engagement model tied to the workforce, customer retention, and financial return. They succeeded in challenging the status quo, removing information silos, and hitting returns of up to $100 million.

Effective communication is the fundamental characteristic of increasing employee engagement (Zets, 2013). Companies fail to build fruitful relationships because employees cannot communicate. As observed by Hinchcliffe (2013), the 20thcentury is characterized by increased use of e-mail and office telephone while in the 21st century,   enterprise social networks and unified communication are dominant. In the hopes of improving productivity and efficiency, businesses have long applied the latest technology. As investments attempt to justify costs, collaboration and interaction among employees are also justified. Good collaboration yields dramatic business results creates new game-changing advances and enables the delivery of quality and affordable products to market (ibid). A long-term strategy is needed to continually engage employees through disruptions, innovations, and inevitable changes in the marketplace (Gardus, 2013). Consequently, products and potential technologies that effectively make workers collaborate and communicate have limitations.