Free Facebook Case Analysis Case Study Example

Background/Problem Statement

The digital/information age brought about by the developments in information and communication technologies have primarily shaped how individuals establish both the social environment and communication. As a result, this has influenced the fields such as education, culture, politics, and economy. The usage of social networks especially among the young users in this day and age has rapidly increased. Mark Zuckerberg together with his fellow Harvard University students and roommates launched Facebook on February 2004. As a social network site, Facebook has become a lifestyle and a habit within the daily life routine and influenced the way individuals interact and communicate. The company has continued growing and as for now, it is the leading social media company. The company hit 1 million users in the same year it was established. Facebook was the most visited social media website in June 2011 after reaching one trillion-page views. It rapid pace of growth made numerous venture firms wish to participate in its success. In terms of competition, Facebook’s major rival by the end of 2006 was MySpace. In essence, Facebook helps individuals communicate more efficiently with their coworkers, family, and friends. It is undoubtedly the leading social network site enabled by its continuous development of technologies that ease the sharing of information through the social graph. Despite being the leading social media site, Facebook has received criticism on a variety of strategic issues that risks its growth in the future. Among these strategic issues include privacy and security concerns, forced IPO, organizational concerns, and international user growth concerns, among others. For this reason, the strategic issue in this case is how Facebook can retain its key employees.

Strategic Analysis & Options

As stated in the case study, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in the year 2004, and it has managed to obtain numerous users since then as has been facilitated by various factors. However, the ability of the company to retain its employees is unclear. Consequently, the SWOT analysis of Facebook helps in the formulation of strategies that could help it keep the key hires. Specifically, this section of the paper explains the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and then identifies the potential options for Facebook to deal with the issue of losing its key hires.
Facebook has several strengths that can help it formulate strategies. For one, the company through its employees has brought in lots of new features that make it the pivotal part of human daily life. One of these features is the “LIKE button” that makes individuals love the company. The new features make the company have a competitive advantage over its rivals. In addition, Facebook’s key employees have facilitated the creation of a clean layout that is user-friendly. Facebook’s key employees have facilitated the creation of a clean layout that is user-friendly. Moreover, the company’s active integration of Facebook app with nearly all the mobile applications and websites makes it stronger. Thus, this makes people have more bonding with Facebook compared to the other sites. What’s more, Facebook has multilingual workforces from diverse backgrounds. The company’s main weakness is the problem of retaining some of its key hires. As regards the opportunities and threats, the company is innovative hence it can add extra features to its business model. Additionally, due to its rapid growth, Facebook stands a chance of benefiting more from the rise in marketing through social media. What’s more, Facebook can develop into the next novel operating system. Facebook faces a threat of people shifting to another service like Google+ due to its weak business model. In addition, Facebook’s major rivals such as MySpace might come back again in the market hence this presents a threat to it. What’s more, impersonation and cyber-crime has increased as a result of the negligence of users in managing their contents hence this is a threat to Facebook. Furthermore, the company is facing the threat of employee turnover since it had lost some of its key hires.

Recommendations

There are some solutions that can assist Facebook retain its key hires. It can use several methods to keep its key hires happy and part of the organization. The solutions that can help Facebook retain its key hires include:

Provide career development and training

Provide excellent work environment
Recognize and reward the employees
Regarding the option of career development and training, the company should offer software, workshops, and other tools to assist its hires increase their understanding and what they need from their careers. Ideally, the company should offer plenty of training opportunities so as to keep its hires interested as well as in line with the professional development standards within the industry. It is important for the management to sit down with all the employees and ask about their future aspirations with the company. Additionally, the company should base promotions on the performance of workers and nurture a perception of impartiality in career progression. There are several things that Facebook should consider to ensure success in employee career development and training. The company should communicate to its employees about its commitment to assist them in accomplishing their career goals. In addition, the company ought to create the employee development budget based on its constraints and needs and determine the type of resources/tools to be used for the development purposes. It should also monitor the performance of the employees to evaluate and give feedback on skill mastery and knowledge gain in their present job positions. What’s more, it should create a career development plan for the employees based on the organizational goals and the obtained information from them.
In relation to the option of recognizing and rewarding all the employees, the company should offer all its employees real-time recognition, which celebrates their efforts and success. It should make the recognition specific and support it by tangible rewards. As a consequence, the company management should reward the high performing employees to encourage even higher performance. The company should develop a culture of recognizing and rewarding its employees after accomplishing or exceeding a goal, enhancing quality, demonstrating exceptional teamwork, and improving efficiency. When offering recognition, the company ought to be genuine, timely, and give the action the credit it merits. Thus, it should give the recognition full attention and on time. Additionally, it should offer rewards that make the top performing employees feel appreciated and valued. It should offer rewards such as gift cards, spot bonuses, cash rewards, promotions, exciting development opportunities, and many others.
As regards the option of providing great work environment, the company ought to offer a healthy, attractive, and safe working environment for its workers. The management should make sure that the working environment is pleasant to maintain the employees. In an attempt to provide great work environment, Facebook ought to consider a number of things. For one, Facebook should talk to its employees to understand which flexible work practices best meets their needs. In addition, Facebook should communicate to the employees frequently to make them feel that they are important and part of the company. Adopting an open door policy within the company will improve communication and ensure that there is an open flow of information. Moreover, Facebook should provide status-based recognition and development opportunities. What’s more, the company should give and receive feedback to let the employees know that they are meeting their goals.

Justification/Evaluation

Providing growth opportunities through career development and training will help Facebook retain its key hires as it will make them stay much engaged in their jobs and committed to the company. Ideally, this will provide employees with ample opportunities for growth as well as career progression within the company and help in retaining them.
Recognizing and rewarding all the employees within the company will make them feel appreciated and valued and, as a result, help in retaining them. They will go the extra mile since they will feel responsible for the outcomes of their work, believe their jobs, have a sense of value in their jobs, and make good of their skills.
Lastly, providing a great work environment will make employees enjoy working for the company and facilitate the company’s efforts retain them. A great work environment will assist the Facebook owner and management nurture a culture of teamwork, mutual collaboration, and teamwork, and encourage motivation as they will share information.