How Networking Improves Organizations

March 3, 2010 by in Networking Tips

Are your employees connected?

I’m not talking about connected in a social media sense (although that’s part of it). Nor am I talking about connected in the sense of being engaged in their job (although that’s part of it too).  I’m talking about connected in the face-to-face sense.

In the current edition of T+D magazine there is a comprehensive article on the bottom line corporate benefit to having employees who have the skills necessary to create, cultivate, and capitalize on face-to-face relationships.
Your “unconnected employees” are often the ones who say, “I do a good job. Why do I have to network?” They may be people who have chosen to work in jobs that are typically ‘behind-the-scenes” such as finance, research, IT, and administration. They may be employees flung together after mergers or acquisitions. They may be new hires who are left to fend for themselves. They could be people left behind after layoffs; their internal networks broken and in pieces. They could even be your international employees who may not know or understand North American style relationship building.
Why do you care? Because dozens of studies are showing that what really distinguishes high performers from the rest is their ability to create, maintain and leverage personal networks. In today’s corporate environment highly effective outcomes result from breaking down of silos and collaboration across functions. This calls for highly effective internal (matrix) and external networks.

The term network or networking has a lot of baggage attached based on old definitions. The new names for this skill are terms like relationship management, social acumen, connectivity, horizontal integration, and social capital.

The T+D article cites more than 8 research studies that tie proficiency in networking to other concerns that impact the bottom line. For example:

“Successful managers network 70 percent more than their less successful counterparts.”

(“A Social Capital Theory of Career Success” by Scott E. Seibert, Maria L. Kraimer, and Robert C. Liden,
Academy of Management Journal, April 2001)

“Companies that are more successful at rapid on-boarding tend to use a relational approach, helping newcomers to rapidly establish a broad network of relationships with co-workers that they can tap to obtain the information they need to become productive.”

(Getting New Hires Up to Speed Quickly,” Keith Rollag, Rob Cross, Salvatore Parise,
MIT Sloan Management Review, January 2005)

“70 percent of what people know about their jobs they learn through everyday interactions with colleagues.”

(“The Teaching Firm: Where Productive Work and Learning Converge,”Center
for Workforce Development, Education Development Center, 1998)

“People who have a friend at work are 7 times for likely to stay.”

(Vital Friends, by Tom Rath, Gallup Press, 2006)

According to the article there are 8 defined networking competencies that reflect a comprehensive body of knowledge and skills that can be learned and put into use in the service of business and career goals.

The net message of the article: “Organizations that make networking competency a priority will reap the benefits from employees who know how to get on board quickly, get ahead, get the job done, get the business, get the most out of professional connections at meetings and conferences, and get behind organizational initiatives.”

image courtesy of zach_klein

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