Social Revolution: A Wired Workforce Community

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1. Starbucks Employees Carve Out Own ‘Space'

2. Caution Advised When Using Social Networking Web Sites for Recruiting, Background Checking
Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook can contain details about candidates that make employers think twice about hiring them. But this treasure trove of online data also can amount to a Pandora’s Box.

3. Facebook Faux Pas
Whose bright idea was it to use Facebook or MySpace to get information about job candidates? Certainly not any employer/defendant who has sat with me at counsel table in a case involving hiring discrimination.

4. Facebook Users Get a Look at New Job Opportunities
A deal with Jobster lets users have their information forwarded to recruiters at specific companies for potential jobs or to learn more about that organization. The partnerships enable Facebook users to sign on to a new initiative, the Employer Talent Network.

5. Job Boards Tap Facebook For Gen Y Workers
Recruiters are getting a vital new tool to hire Generation Y workers as major job boards such as CareerBuilder, Jobster, Yahoo HotJobs, and begin linking to the social networking site Facebook.

6. Social Networking for Recruiters
Recruiters are taking an interest in social-networking Web sites as a way to tap valuable passive job candidates. Purely social sites like Friendster aren't as rich in possibilities as such business-oriented sites as LinkedIn, Ryze and ZeroDegrees. For now social-networking sites are a large, unruly experiment in online recruiting.

Starbucks Employees Carve Out Own ‘Space'

Starbucks may not have an official corporate social networking site, but employees of the Seattle-based coffee chain still can connect online.
By Ed Frauenheim

tarbucks may not have an official corporate social networking site, but employees of the Seattle-based coffee chain still can connect online.

A recent search for "Starbucks" under the "Companies/Co-workers" category at MySpace groups turned up 65 listings. These include groups at the popular social networking site focused on specific Starbucks stores, ex-Starbucks employees and criticism of the company. At "The Starbucks Crew" site, there's a heated debate about unionizing.

The most popular Starbucks company/co-worker group at MySpace is "Starbucks HQ." With more than 4,800 members, the group bills itself as "the UNOFFICIAL Starbucks group site reserved for the purpose of edification, enlightenment, venting and expounding by Starbucks partners worldwide." Recent postings address matters such as iced cappuccinos, transferring to different stores and "Top Ten Things I Would Say to Customers if I Knew I Wouldn't Get Fired."

(The author, "Cho" from Boise, Idaho, ranked this as No. 1: " 'Gimme a grande coffee' is not an appropriate response to 'Hello! How are you today?' ")

Andrew Gonis, a 21-year-old Starbucks employee from Laguna Niguel, California, founded Starbucks HQ two years ago. His aim was to improve upon an existing Starbucks employee group full of "negativity" and spam. Gonis thinks he succeeded, as evidenced in part by the 20 to 30 new postings or replies every day.

Despite his fondness for "Starbucks HQ," Gonis would welcome an official Starbucks corporate social network. For one thing, it would relieve Gonis—who is taking college classes in restaurant management—of his heavy moderator duties.

Starbucks did not respond to requests for comment.

For now, Gonis logs on to Starbucks HQ multiple times a day to check for spam or approve new members. All the effort stems from his appreciation of Starbucks as an employer and the communal feelings he shares with other "partners." Of the site, he says, "It's an extension of your family, I guess."

Workforce Management, October 22, 2007, p. 32 -- Subscribe Now!

Ed Frauenheim is a Workforce Management staff writer based in San Francisco. E-mail editors@workforce.com to comment.

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