Four Reasons HR Professionals Should Use an RSS Reader

Whenever I talk with HR pros about social media and technology, there’s one question that regularly comes up.

“How do you find the time to get everything done?”

Technology isn’t supposed to make things more complex and time consuming. It’s supposed to help us do our jobs faster and more efficiently. One of the tools I use every day to help me stay on top of what’s happening in my industry and profession is an  RSS reader.

Some of you might be wondering – What’s an RSS reader? RSS stands for rich site summary or real simple syndication. Anytime you see one of those orange buttons with what looks like a radio wave, the site has an RSS feed available.

RSS allows you to put all of your reading in one location. And it’s not your email inbox. If you’re not currently using RSS, here are a few reasons you might want to consider trying it out.

Time – You’re a busy person. You don’t have time to visit websites every day to see what’s new. With RSS, you select your fave sites and when they post something new, it will automatically feed into your reader. Also many readers have apps for your smartphone and/or tablet so you can read away from your office. And others give you the ability to read offline.

Productivity – Since RSS readers put content in one place, it allows you to be incredibly productive. Let’s say you want to read ten blogs. And, the last thing you want is to receive ten emails every time the blog updates their content. You shouldn’t have to say, “I’m only going to subscribe to five blogs, because I can only handle five emails.” With an RSS, you can subscribe to as many or as few sites as you wish.

Research – Your boss has just asked you to put together a presentation on employee engagement for the Q3 managers meeting. With an RSS, you can flag content from your reader for a future date. So when you see an interesting article on employee engagement, you can tag it for your presentation.

Organization – I have varied interests. I like reading business blogs and food blogs. With an RSS, I can organize them so each type of content is separate. I read the business ones first thing in the morning so I’m up on what’s happening. Then the food blogs at night.

Before I started writing HR Bartender, I had no idea what RSS was. Over time, I’ve found so many great blogs that I want to read…RSS became a necessity. Alton Brown once said, “Organization will set you free.” It’s true and RSS can help you do it.

Do you use an RSS reader? Let us know which one in the comments.