Having been on the inside implementing some of these systems the main driver is consistently desperation to 'engage' the workforce by trying to create in-work c

Having been on the inside implementing some of these systems the main driver is consistently desperation to 'engage' the workforce by trying to create in-work communities. Employee engagement is a key metric for a productive workforce but the studies that I saw all showed it declining over the past decade. Along come the 'social platform' salesmen and cleverly pitch at Business clients, who then tell Technology that they've found a solution to engagement if we'd just hurry-up and deploy $PLATFORM. The enthusiasm usually lasts until the end of the initial support period, three years say, and then another $PLATFORM arrives which will definitely solve the problem. Providing a social platform is fine but the employees need to have meaningful, empowered work before they'll even be motivated to look at it. In the absence of that, coercion reached the stage where employees were being forced to create their profiles on the new platform as part of annual goals. So many profiles created and avatars loaded, never to be used...