"People who are stuck on the edge of a network are important because they’re underutilized resources and are three times more likely than better-connected people to leave an organization."
-Rob Cross
So first I hear that a social network will make or break a person's stay in a organization, statistically speaking. He goes on to later say,
"If you tried to force a single parent, for instance, or even a scientist or a subject matter expert, back into the fray, you probably wouldn’t get very good results."
But maybe the social aspect of the network is just what that person needs. For instance, the working mother could find a coworker whose daughter is looking for a babysitting job and would work for relatively very little money. I know about this kind of thing from personal experience. Most babysitting jobs my sister and I have had came from my mom's coworkers. People should take the time to get to know a little bit about the other people in their network, especially at work, so that each person can help make another's life a little easier. In this matter, I think that the network is not being taken full advantage of and may not be given the potential credit it deserves.
But I don't think that having a person not connected is going to cause a person to leave an organization. Haven't we all had a job or a class that we would much rather just get our work done and leave? Perhaps the people being examined here actually despise the people they work with and chooses to remain private? After a certain amount of time, they will finally get fed up with everyone else, and just quit. It is then not a matter of getting people involved, it is a matter of dealing with someone who does not like you and refuses to interact with you unless they must.
Otherwise, I simply must say that single mothers are incredibly hard workers and may not have the time to socialize. Either that or they find another, higher paying job which prevents them from staying. I feel that the statistics which Cross uses can be misleading. Since he spends so much time around social networking, what tells me that he is not just giving the social network too much credit?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Anna-
I think that you are certainly touching on a very well point made on Cross's article about how a person not being well connected will cause him to leave the organization. I could agree with you that this is not necessarily true as there are various workes in the company who prefer to get their work done by themselves and leave as to balance their work-life style and or spent some time with their family. On the other hand, there are workers who want communicate with other depending on their job functions. This might actually be true for the workers who have just started and would like to creat a network with other of their co-workers.
Post a Comment