I’m not a lawyer.  I’m a guy who works in Social Technology at Best Buy.  In the last 2 years, I’ve become more educated on Wage and Hour laws in the US.  Laws that were written in the 30’s to protect hourly employees from abuse.  I’m for those laws- protection is good- abuse is bad.

But in the last 2 years, I’ve seen examples of these laws getting in the way of how people work, collaborate and innovate.  Best Buy is a retailer with over 140,000 employees.  The majority of those are paid hourly.  Because of the nature of the work they do in our stores, they don’t have a choice to be anything but hourly. Because of the laws, we can’t choose to pay our employees a salary- unless they’re in a management position.

In the last 6 months, Best Buy has come out and publicly stated that our future growth will be a direct result of our employees ability to innovate and serve our customers on a local level.  We’re betting the farm on our employee’s ability to think differently and try new things.  And I believe our culture is set up for them to succeed- its extremely entrepreneurial.

Here’s my rub.  For those employees who are living like most 16-24 year olds do, the line between work and life is blurred and sometimes non-existent.   Many bring their whole self to work- they don’t differentiate between on the clock and off the clock.  I’ve met these employees, I’ve worked them, and I believe that these types of employees will make all the difference in the company’s future.

But we hold them back (we as in Corporate).  And today we need to.  We can’t allow them to work off the clock.  We can’t allow them to be on Twitter, to write a blog, to connect with customers on Facebook.  We can’t allow them to be themselves and an extension of Best Buy (even if they insist).  We can’t because we can’t track their time they put into these activities outside of the store environment- which we would need to do to make it legal.  

This may sound like a small deal, but imagine someone tells you to be an entrepreneur but you can only  do it from 9-5 with two fifteen minute breaks and a thirty minute lunch. 

Doesn’t work.

A salaried approach helps break down those barriers.  Doesn’t solve it- employees still need to be compensated well for their job.  But it essentially lets the employee choose how involved they’d like to be- not to be dictated by 4000 people at a Corporate office.

I recently had a chance to present to Best Buy legal and HR- about 500 people.  I tried to help them understand the way people are living today with social technology and the potential it has to our business if done right. 

Here’s the presentation- hit me with comments, ideas, or criticisms.

 Streaming the Brand
How Employees Could Use Social Media to Earn Trust
Audience:  HR and Legal- Hyatt Offsite
7/31/08

Has anyone here heard of Julia Allison?  Because she’s famous.  She can’t sing, she can’t dance and she
doesn’t tell jokes and she’s not rich.   And 4 years ago, given her lack of talent and money, she’d be someone like you and me- only with a lot of pent up energy.

But social media has allowed her to be famous.  She’s opened her life to anyone who will listen.  And it turns out, it’s kind of entertaining.  A new version of reality TV- you can follow her schedule of fancy dinners, read dating advice, see photos of her latest outfits.  You can watch videos of Allison playing with her dog or hanging with friends.

Her blogs, her videos, and her pictures have given her a way to feel important and to matter- at least to some people.  And the web has provided her an unlimited audience- without a huge Branding or PR campaign like days of old.

The technology she uses is common place, its free; it’s easy to use and master. 

Social media goes beyond blogs and MySpace- it’s becoming a way of life.  A way of life that doesn’t differentiate whether you’re on the clock or off the clock.  People who use social media in ways that Julia does (or even a fraction of the way she does) put their whole self out there.  It’s slowly becoming the norm.

Who here has heard of Twitter?  Twitter is a site where people describe what they’re doing.  Users have 140 characters to tell anyone what they’re reading, eating, thinking, learning, who they’re meeting etc….

Anyone here know Zappos.com?  What if I told you I know the CEO of Zappos?  I’ve never met him, never shook his hand, and never heard his voice.  But I follow him on Twitter and he follows me.

Would you be surprised if I told you the CEO of Zappos is 33 years old, lives on Slim Jims washed down with Redbull, and just threw a party for his company at his house and had 4 live penguins in the pool?  Oh, and the company is on track to break $1 billion in gross merchandise sales for 2008. 

Now I don’t know about you, but I like this guy.  I want to buy shoes from this guy.  I want to have a drink with this guy. 

This is the future of what our employees should and will be doing- it fits perfectly into our local market strategies- let customers get to know you and more importantly, get to know your customers.  And get to know them as people- help them, earn trust with them.  Trust doesn’t come if we’re not willing to give out some of who we are and what we’re into- both good and bad.

And the effect that something as simple as Twitter can have is pretty amazing.  There was a recent blog post by one of the top guys in social media- Shel Israel- about his use of Twitter.  He claimed in his blog, that he felt Twitter was a better search tool than Digg, or Yahoo or Google.  When he’s looking for a book, or a place to eat, or advice on travel, he posts a Tweet.  He gets hundreds of responses.  But the thing is he gets those responses from his network- the people he trusts and knows.  It’s like Amazon ratings and reviews on steroids.

Now imagine a Best Buy store employee using Twitter.  She’s built a network of people she knows and trusts.  She Tweets about her life- her weekend out, her boyfriend, stuff she’s doing, things she’s reading, technology she uses, likes or reads about.  She invites customers to follow her if they want. They can get to know her.  They start to have a relationship beyond technology.  She has the opportunity to become part of their trusted network. Someone to be asked an opinion when that customer needs it.

Now let’s start talking about what’s on everyone’s mind.  Holy Shit-  she can’t do that.  What if she Tweets about sex, drugs, and rock and roll! How would we ever track all those conversations?  What if she said something bad about Best Buy.  How will we pay her when she’s Tweeting about work- would we use a giant spreadsheet? 

Those are realistic questions.  But the thing is she’s going to do it.  When our employees and customers adopt things like Twitter on a broader scale, they’ll do it with or without our permission. 

And this is just the start- this isn’t a fad.  It’s becoming a way of life, how people communicate, how they interact.  Like how some of us pull out those dusty books called photo albums.  Or how we stay connected through email.

 We have time to start prepping, to get good at not only minimizing the risk, but encouraging employees to do this kind of thing.  These types of communications let us be human- to be trusted- to serve better.

The reality is, today we can’t knowingly let or encourage our employees to use Twitter in that way- or any other social media.  The labor laws today dictate that we have to have clear separation from work and life- and pay employees based on that difference.  But all indications of how people are living today show that work and life and the line between are blurred and sometimes non-existent. 

To some degree, this will affect our growth strategy.  Maybe not this year, but over time, we’ll suffer from the inability of our employees to bring their whole self to work. We’re asking employees to innovate, to collaborate, and to grow this company by billions.  To know our customer’s as individuals, to serve them.  We’ve openly bet the farm on an employee’s ability to do this.  

How do we use our position in the market to challenge some of the laws and regulations that tie an older definition of work with the new realities of how people work and live?

How are we going to act?  Are we going to react or act now and start to plan for it?

I don’t have the answer.  And with all the companies I’ve talked to, I don’t know any that do.  But we’re in a unique situation.  The work that’s happening around the company in social technology is industry leading- it’s getting recognized and studied.  And more and more teams are seeing how important it is and are trying new things.  We need to get a head of it.  We need to take some risks. 

Tags: best buy, customer, employees, friend, human, julia allison, labor laws, legal, retail, social technology