Waco, Texas — Jan. 29

By allowing employees to participate in a work-sponsored internal social networking site, a company can improve morale and reduce turnover, according to a Baylor University case study published in the European Journal of Information Systems.

The study, which looked at a financial institution’s efforts to acclimate new employees into the organization, also found that participation led to a greater sense of well-being and organizational commitment and better employee engagement.

“For millennials, mixing their work life and their social life via an online social networking created positive emotions for the employees who use the system,” said Hope Koch, Baylor University associate professor of information systems in the Hankamer School of Business and a co-author of the study. “These emotions led to more social networking and ultimately helped the employees build personal resources like social capital and organizational learning.”

The study centered on a financial institution’s efforts to reduce IT employee turnover by starting a social and work-related online networking site. Under the supervision of executives, the IT new hires developed and managed the site’s content.

Since most new hires had moved hundreds of miles to start their new jobs with the institution, they initially used the social pages as an introduction to the community. After a year or so with the organization, the more senior new hires began using the system to acclimate and mentor incoming new hires.

All study respondents worked in the institution’s IT department and included new hires, middle managers and executives. With less than three years of experience, most new hires and interns were men between 21 and 27 years old. The middle managers and executives were baby boomers or members of generation X. The internal social networking site helped the new hires build social capital in several ways.

Ironically, middle managers — even though they wanted freedom from mentoring new hires — developed a negative attitude toward online social networking when they realized that the new hires had managed to accrue social capital and social experiences with senior executives that they had not had access to in their many years of work.