A survey of more than 4,000 UK businesses from Reed looking at social networking in the workplace.

Some interesting numbers in here, not least that more than 30% admitted to not having any kind of social networking policy in place. The question that would have been interesting to ask is what percentage of employees are *encouraged* to use social networks at work? Those areas - from recruitment and customer services to Ideation, business networking and product/service advocacy - are a massive opportunity for value creation in organisations. If 1/3 don’t even have a policy, how many have a business-use strategy?

For those who haven’t yet met Jon (some of you) or Malik (all of you), I just wanted to take two minutes to ‘formally’ introduce them:

Jon has joined us from BLT and is consulting primarily in B2E / Recruitment, helping corporate recruiters and consultancies realise the value in social recruiting, employee empowerment and organisational advocacy. Jon made a film of his first week, below, which is apparently his excuse for not having written a self-depreciating bio.

Jon Tweets @Jernandes

Malik joins us fresh from business school (EM Lyon) and will be primarily working on social media strategies in B2B markets. His bio is below. Hailing from Cannes, we await his First Week with Carve film with considerable interest.

Malik is the newbie of the team, and another Francais wanting to settle in London because of Brit rock clichés. Deeply influenced by a drunk graffiti artist in Barcelona who shouted at him to « Express Yourself or Be Quiet », he has since that day vowed never to be quiet, and therefore loves to express his original and crucial perspective on just about anything: from the the latest social technologies, to Lady GaGa’s haircut to analysing Barcelona’s latest footballing masterclass. Previously a hard-core Seesmic user, he finally accepted to leave his first love and switch to Hootsuite to follow his workmates, as of proof of obediance.

Malik tweets @MalikAberkane and you can see his Flavors

So, welcome to the team - and yes Malik you need to change that LinkedIn photo..

Hi all! Jon here;  some of you twitter type people may already know me as @jernandes…and some of you linkedin people may already know about my new role at Carve!

First of all, I just wanted to say ‘Hi’ to those of you I don’t know (just yet).

Secondly, I thought, what better way to announce my arrival than with a blog post about my first week at Carve. Actually, I can go one better than that. Here are my edited highlights from week 1!

Be sure to say ‘Hi’ back!

http://twitter.com/jernandes

http://uk.linkedin.com/jonfernandes

Jon

You used to “check-in” to earn badges, get tips from other “checkers” or show your friends that you just became the mayor of your local off-licence at 4am on a Tuesday night.

Now you’re going to start checking in to see the odds of your next check-in to be the hospital (or worse) later on…Meet Fearsquare: as written on the website, Fearsquare ” allows FourSquare users in the UK to easily see the official crime statistics for the places where you ‘check-in’…

http://www.fearsquare.com/

Paul Harrison was quoted in an article by Charlotte Gill in the Daily Mail on the 4th April, highlighting why we should all be mindful of what we post online.   You can no longer treat your online communications as “private conversations” because online everything you say is published and potentially broadcast to thousands.

The full article is available here: One click to disaster: Ever moaned about work on Facebook? Or joked about your boss? It could end in a P45…

Paul believes employees need to be given strict guidelines as to what people can and can’t say on Facebook: ‘Unless firms are explicit about how their staff use social networks, it’s unfair for people who are not internet gurus. Facebook’s privacy settings are longer than the U.S. Constitution.’

More and more employers are using what’s said online in their recruitment decisions.  Don Leslie, from recruitment agency Beament Leslie Thomas was also quoted in the article, ‘People post things that maybe they shouldn’t, even years before they apply for the job but find that it’s difficult to erase from the internet. If they’re savvy they can block access to what people see on Facebook and other sites. But while some are savvy, some aren’t.’

Paul was also interviewed by BBC Radio on this subject. The interview can be heard from 17.30 minutes into the broadcast:

The internet has a long memory…think before you post. And be mindful of your privacy settings!

…it might not be easy to create 3D or interactive Youtube video CVs unless you are a very skilled geek. The following example is a mind-blowing yet relatively simple way of getting noticed (and hired) without spending 2 years studying programming.

QR CODE - Content-rich Resume from Victor petit on Vimeo.

We were delighted to learn that Carve’s client BLT has been voted “Best Management Consultancy Recruitment Consultancy 2011″ by Top-Consultant subscribers.  With this being BLT’s third “Best Management Consultancy Recruitment Consultancy” award in a row, having won previously in 2009 and 2010, the recognition is particularly impressive.

Sarah Burgess and Don Leslie were also winners of the individual recruiter awards.

Congratulations to you all!

Paul Harrison recently spoke at Beament Leslie Thomas’ breakfast seminar about “Employer Reputation 2.0″. You can see key takeaways from this seminar here, as Paul discusses with BLT’s Don Leslie about how brands are being defined in the social space.

You can also view slides from the presentation here on Slideshare.

Plan have launched their report into Haiti One Year On