Can WorkSimple, LinkedIn Integration Help Inspire Your Staff?Can WorkSimple, LinkedIn Integration Help Inspire Your Staff?

8 HR Collaboration Platforms In Action

The social employee motivation service WorkSimple is adding LinkedIn integration as a way of sharing recognition for a job well done more widely.

WorkSimple built its motivational service around the concept of social goals, where employees publicly commit to the goals they hope to achieve, and the software tracks achievement as well as the intertwined goals and accomplishments of team members. The service has since added the concept of a "work story" as part of each employee's profile that serves as a running record of accomplishments at work. Now, WorkSimple will allow employees to share items from that profile--like goals they have set or recognition they have achieved--publicly on their LinkedIn profiles.

"This new edition is focused on helping employees boost their professional recommendation," WorkSimple co-founder Morgan Norman said. "As an employee, this can help me either get promoted within my organization, or help me get promoted outside of my organization."

[Through savvy use of LinkedIn, IT pros may soon be on their way to a better job. Learn How To Catch Recruiters' Eyes On LinkedIn]

Usually, gathering recommendations and recommendations is something employees do in a hurry as they are leaving a company. WorkSimple wants to make it easy for supervisors and coworkers to recognize achievement as it happens, and for employees to crosspost those achievements to LinkedIn. "That recognition shouldn't be after you've left the company," Norman said.

Some companies might choose not to turn the feature on, just because they don't want to help employees promote themselves publicly--and possibly get recruited away, Norman said. But he said this is one way to get employees engaged with a performance management system, for employees who are otherwise left wondering, what's in it for me?

"You have to decide if you're interested in enabling the workforce to engage around your business--or whether you're not that kind of business," Norman said.

Norman said competitors like Rypple "are still focused on management and coaching employees on what to do," whereas WorkSimple takes a more bottom up approach asking employees to set their own goals.

The real challenge in this market is to take on talent and human resources software giants like Success Factors and Taleo, Norman said.

Learn the secrets to getting your employees to share and collaborate with one another in this Enterprise 2.0 webcast. Here's a hint--it's not about the technology, it's about your people! It happens Oct. 12. Sign up now. (Free with registration.)