Back in August Ford started communicating with employees giving them a sneak preview of the future. M&S will no doubt be having some internal discussions after the latest job cuts but in reality the percentage of staff they are getting rid of is nowhere near the percentage of sales drop; it shouldn't really be such big news but it is so Tanith Dodge and her team will no doubt be dealing with a lot of questions.
And of course the knock-on effect across all businesses is huge when a company such as M&S hit the headlines so every HR professional will be feeling the heat. And where will their employees go to debate all of this? The internal social network? Respond to the latest internal CEO blog post about how they are doing? Start an internal discussion on their corporate forum? Or will they go off to Facebook because internally they don't have any of these communication channels? And will HR reprimand anyone for doing this? But if there is no social media policy how can HR deal with the discussions even if they are considered 'negative'?
Many, many questions which is why HR need to understand social media in the workplace, get to grips with how it helps the business engage with their people, and start to use it themselves. Only by getting involved will they see the real value.