Samenvatting

Many companies have included social media features in their corporate intranets to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing, and to improve internal communications. Since November 2013 Rabobank International(RI) has launched their new worldwide social intranet, Meeting point. However, like in many other organizations, Rl’s employees are not using those social media features of the intranet actively. Therefore, for RI to take advantage of this trend and all the benefits it can bring the company, the proposed research question is: “How should Rabobank International encourage its employees to use the social media tools of the international intranet more actively?”. The aim of this research is to analyse the main reasons why they are not actively used, taking into account cultural differences, and to find out how RI could best bring this to the desired situation. In order to answer this question, orientation interviews, online semi-structured surveys and additional in-depth interviews have been conducted. The population consists of only 45% of RI, all the employees from the Netherlands, the remaining countries of Europe where RI operates, and Asia. These are seen as three different regions. For now the intranet is mainly used to get company information or to stay updated with news. The social tools are only used by 28-35% of the employees. The main reasons for not, or not frequently using the social tools are that they do not see, or do not know, the added value of the tools, they see it as something ‘’extra’’ disconnect with their daily work, and because there are already too many other ways of communicating which are seen as more convenient or easier to use. Next to this, there is a significant concern that it is seen by everyone in the company. Furthermore, education and awareness is lacked, there is still 42% who does not know the social tools. This is enhanced by the finding that the tools seem to be too hidden in the intranet. What we can conclude is that although already 76% of the employees are rather passive users of social media in general, people tend to become even more passive users with internal social media. They will express themselves to a limited extent, especially in Asia. This might be because of cultural reasons, but might also be the organizational culture. Widespread usage seems to be key, if the tools are used by colleagues, and especially by management, others will seem to follow. In order to create this, active management and the need for clarity on how to use them, when and why to use them, are of great importance. Only if a widespread usage is created it will result in benefits for both the employees and the company. Moreover, as widespread usage is enhanced the tool will become an embedded 5 Graduation Internship Report / Dide Hamans 1614210 tool in the organization, and eventually it will become an urgency to use the tools as well. There needs to be a change in the organizational culture by creating a culture of openly and actively sharing information. However, this might take time. The two options of advice result from the needs of the employees. Option A will be a lower cost approach than option B. This is an approach of policy and organization around the existing website. The focus is here on showing added value, creating awareness, and management leading by example. Option B represents a change in the look and feel, and set-up of the website. After these changes the launch can be done all over, and awareness, education, adoption and activation, will have to come back to attention once again.