WhatsApp in Employee Communication: A Double-Edged Sword

by | RMS Blog | 0 comments

With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp has permeated into various business sectors, including (be it officially and unofficially) the retail and hospitality workplaces.

However, its application in employee communication has proven to be a double-edged sword, with potential security risks and a need for proper features for workplace collaboration and performance tracking.

The Emergence of WhatsApp in Workplace Communication

WhatsApp’s familiarity has led to its widespread adoption in workplace communication. This was particularly evident during the pandemic when workers (in the absence of a company-approved alternative) looked for ways to stay in touch and up-to-date on work-related matters. However, using a consumer-based messaging app for professional purposes can bring several challenges and risks – just ask the former PM Boris Johnson!

The Problem of Mixing Personal and Professional Communication – Most people know and use WhatsApp for personal communication; however, overlapping professional and personal conversations can easily lead to confusion and inefficiencies. For example, work-related information can accidentally be sent to family or friends, while personal topics can unintentionally infiltrate a professional discussion. These mix-ups can create distractions, diminish productivity and efficiency, and create the opportunity to embarrass oneself or others by sharing information not meant for everyone’s eyes.

The Challenge of Managing Users – WhatsApp’s simple interface also has other limitations, particularly when it comes to administrative and audience control. For instance, when new employees join an organisation’s WhatsApp group, they have to provide their personal phone number; everyone can see this in the group. The lack of admin controls means you cannot grant permission or access settings to new members, nor can you gain insights into their usage analytics – additionally, it’s also hard to quickly remove members from a group should they leave the business. I personally know several people who have left companies to join competitors yet still get messages on everything happening at their old company because no one has removed them from a WhatsApp group.

The Dilemma of Security and Privacy – While WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption, its security and privacy practices have repeatedly been scrutinised. One concern is that it’s uncertain what information from WhatsApp’s database is shared with its parent company, Facebook. I’m pretty sure we all have examples of messages from someone about something, only to be then inundated with adverts or information about that thing everywhere we go online. Coincidence? Maybe not! Moreover, when employees leave an organisation, they can take away valuable business data shared during their tenure, as once readers have downloaded messages onto their mobile devices, your company has no way of deleting or modifying them.

Inefficient Communication for Business Purposes – WhatsApp offers only two modes of communication — direct chats and group chats. These modes can be inefficient for business purposes, especially when requiring more targeted communication with advanced features. Additionally, important messages can easily be lost amidst the flood of other messages, making it difficult for employees to manage and browse shared files and relevant documents. 

The Impact on Work-Life Balance – Using WhatsApp for business communication can blur the lines between professional and personal lives, causing tension and impacting performance. Many employees use a single phone number for both official and personal purposes. This overlap can lead to mix-ups between work and private conversations and negatively impact work-life balance and productivity. For instance, there is a risk of employees accidentally sharing customer details in their personal WhatsApp groups or personal messages overtaking professional discussions. Using personal communication apps like WhatsApp for business communication can make it challenging for employees to set clear boundaries between their professional and personal lives. This difficulty can lead to stress and negatively impact their work performance and relationships at home.

Purpose-built Alternative 

RMS has long recognised that we are, more often than not, creatures of habit as individuals – it is for us to provide something compelling to break bad habits. Given the challenges and risks associated with using WhatsApp for employee communication, it’s essential that alternative tools offer not only more security but better more engaging features for workplace collaboration. That’s where Metro provides a purpose-built alternative to uncontrolled ‘off-domain’ applications like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Facebook Messenger.

Effective User Management – All Metro applications reside upon a cloud-based Foundation platform, which provides effective user management and manages business hierarchy, location attributes, access control, and data feeds across the entire suite of Metro modules — enabling, for example, the ability to direct content to specific locations, departments, roles or individuals based on a range of selectable criteria. 

Enhanced Worker Engagement – Metro’s Unified Comms module is the employee engagement module within Metro and provides each user with personalised communications, tasks, and compliance activities via personalised homepages, all accessed behind a secure password-controlled gateway. An intuitive digital workplace delivers content, tasks, social communications, messaging, feedback, performance, and more to individuals based on who they are, when and where they work.

Simplifying your Tech Stack – On average, retailers use between 15 to 30 different software tools in their operational tech stack, with many of these tools fractured, operating in silos and with diverse commercial, support, and integration approaches. Any alternative to WhatsApp should, at a minimum, be compatible with the organisation’s existing tech stack. Metro’s digital ecosystem delivers a full suite of SaaS tools designed to run retail operations effectively from a single cloud-based software instance – One Contract, One Support Agreement, One Consolidated Tech Stack. 

User-friendliness and Platform Agnosticism – Through many years of hard-gained experience, RMS understands that any chosen communication channel must be user-friendly and accessible through any device. Ease of accessibility encourages employees to use it for internal communication, thus boosting employee engagement, productivity and well-being.

Conclusion

While WhatsApp might seem like an easy and convenient tool for workplace communication, its limitations and potential risks make it unsuitable for professional use. Businesses of all types should consider alternatives that offer better security, efficient user management, and more effective team collaboration features like those found within purpose-built solutions.

In addition to providing an alternative to WhatsApp, here is what else RMS specialise in and offers:

Contact us for a personalised demo and to find out more.

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