This afternoon, I’ve been talking to a room full of HR folks about social media.

We had a tweetalong.
We had a game of social media bingo.
We took a look into the possible near future.
We looked at now.

The world of work has changed, is changing, will change some more. And guess what? HR will have to change with it.

Because we know what happens to the organisations, functions, professions that can’t, don’t, won’t. We have all seen the case studies, the corporate corpses stinking up the joint.

So to those people who don’t get social, don’t like social, think it isn’t relevant to them, their career, their organisation, think Twitter is about telling people what you had for breakfast, I said simply this.

Does a black and white television set still take up space in your living room?
Do you long for your original, big, old Nokia mobile phone, so you can play just one more game of snake?
Do you lament the lost days of the manual typewriter and the carbon copy paper?
Do you still get good value from your fax machine?

I’m guessing not. Because the world moved on and we moved with it.

This isn’t generational, millennial, science fictional.

We have social, connected, mobile, digital employees. So we must be social, connected, mobile digital employers, organisations, HR professionals.

Seth Godin said that social media is the biggest shift in this generation. I said that it is a big fat gift to our profession. Because social media is people stuff, and people stuff is what we do.

For every company embracing the changes, breaking the rules, making the HR headlines, there are others stuck, trapped, denying, head in the sand burying.

Whether you like it or not, this is the new HR landscape. Social media used to be disruptive, different, new. But now, just normal. So to those who are late to the party, who are quickly catching on, I say it is time for HR to understand, embrace, lead. Help your organisations take the step, make the change.

Social is the future of work.

And the future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed.

So hang back, or get ahead.

You still don’t get social media? Good luck with that.