Many companies aorund the world have taken to blogging. Not only we have individual business bloggers, but also one can see a lot of company blogs, team blogs and so on. (Here is one post I wrote about business blogs in India.)

Companies are actively promoting blogs because they serve as an excellent medium for sharing content, knowledge and information. Such blogs not only encourage individuals to create “content”, but also serve as an important self-development tool for the bloggers.

I have been thinking about the idea of “HR Blogs” in organizations.

My discussions with hundreds of employees and tons of employee survey data has led me to believe that employees generally feel the need for more communication from the HR department on policies, practices, guidelines etc. And, I felt that a company HR blog could be one of the media which can be used to communicate and disseminate such information. Such a platform would make the information sitting in dusty files easily accesible to employees on-demand. The blog would also help in reinforcing communication. Some sample purposed which the HR department could use the blog for could be:

• Disseminate general information about programs and policies. 
• Share updates on upcoming training programs.
• Inform employees about performance appraisls. Educate managers on best practices for conducting appraisals.
• Share other best practices on people management like selection, on-boarding, goal-setting, recognition, alignment to corporate objectives, progress reviews etc.
• Disseminate information about HR business partners for other divisions / departments.
• Outline the role of line HR and describe how they can help.
• Share information on new policies.
• Use simple polls to conduct dipstick surveys.
• Creating “interview” posts with employees by inviting them to share great ideas, practices and feedback.

Such a HR blog could help in getting employee opinions on many of the HR-related issues and would guide policy-making. Moreover, this will be a much more accessible and searchable repository of information.

Do you think HR blogs would make sense? How could we leverage these?