The role and tendencies of development of the social media in human resources management

Abstract

Social media as a topicality in human resources management has gained significance during the recent years. The goal of the article is to determine the role and priorities of using social media and to examine the types of social media currently used by organisations. The theoretical frame of the research is based on the structure of social media, characterised by two directions: personnel development that includes the inner environment of an organisation and the brand management of the employer that includes the outer environment. The main topicality and problem of the research is that employers are unable to provide companies with labour force, and employers’ activities in the social media environment are insufficient and not organized professionally in the context of human resources management. The quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in the research. The purpose of the article is to study the habits of using social media in small and medium-sized enterprises. It is based on a pilot study with non-representable sampling, where 79 small and medium enterprises both from the private and public sectors were surveyed. The results of the research showed that, currently, organisations use the social media at a low level in their operations, and maintain and develop their social media profiles. The employees of the organisations are involved in maintaining the social network profiles. The data collected in the research reflect that organisations associate the use of the social media with human resources selection, attraction, publishing of the vacancies, and developing content in their social media profiles. The data provided in the conclusions show that small and medium-sized enterprises use social media in human resources insufficiently. The proposals are to increase the intensity and competence of corporate social media use.