Dreamforce 2012: Salesforce makes HR more social

Dreamforce 2012

Salesforce.com has taken the wraps of a new HR tool it claims transforms the way organisations motivate and monitor employees.

Work.com builds a bridge between traditional HR practices and the new world of social media to more effectively recognise and reward employee performance and provide a more seamless feedback link.

The company has also partnered with Amazon to enable companies to directly reward employees using the online marketplace directly from within Work.com.

"The way we work has changed, but the technology most companies use to manage work is painfully out of date," said John Wookey, executive vice president of the company's social applications arm.

"Work.com empowers teams to work better together by delivering the tools they need to stay aligned and motivated - and integrating them with the systems where people actually work."

Facebook global CIO Tim Campos took to the stage to detail how Work.com is helping the social network be more social from within.

"Social is inherent in who we are as beings. We are social beings. Social companies have just tapped in to that. Facebook is only one per cent finished. The way we get there is by growing our workforce and continuing to invest in our workforce. It's not about the hierarchy or titles etc. It's about relationships between people. We need tools to understand this," he said.

"We're excited about Work.com. [Systems like that] de-emphasise cost centre and instead focus on relationships between employees. So our workforce is encouraged to provide genuine feedback every day not just during the performance review cycle."

Maggie Holland

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.