What’s up with using WhatsApp for Business Communication?
You need to send a quick message to a colleague or group of colleagues when you’re out of the office. What do you do?
Everyone uses different types of smartphones, so due to its ubiquity WhatsApp is often the chosen medium for group and departmental “chats”. In fact a survey last year by CCS Insight found that WhatsApp is used by 30% of employees in the US and Western Europe, making it the most prevalent app used for business.
So what’s wrong with this?
Customer data and GDPR
If you work with customers or patients then you’ll most likely be breaking some GDPR rules by having their data on your personal mobile, or discussing them using WhatsApp. And if your employer hasn’t agreed to WhatsApp as an ‘official workplace tool’ then there will be no guidelines in place regarding its use, leaving your employer open to penalties.
Changes in personnel and data security
If an employee is added to a work WhatsApp group and leaves the business, whose responsibility is it to remove them from the group? If they remain, they may receive confidential, sensitive or valuable information which can be taken to their new employer, who is potentially a competitor.
The employer has no record of conversations
With the rise of WhatsApp, IT Teams are struggling to monitor, store and manage work related conversations. If employees use their personal account and if the messages in question have been deleted there is no way of accessing them, leaving the organisation in breach. Despite this, around a third of doctors use app based messaging.
Work-life balance
If you use your WhatsApp account for personal messages and then add work to the mix, there’s a good chance that an over-keen manager, demanding customer or colleague will deem it perfectly fine to message you at 10pm on a Friday or 10am on a Sunday with “just a quick question”. If you respond you set a precedent that you or the entire group should be working or at least thinking about work during your time off. That’s an unfair position to be placed in. If you mute the group then you may miss something that is crucial for work tomorrow.
Mixing your style and tone of communication
If you are in ‘friends and family’ texting mode, you’re likely to be more relaxed with unexpected work messages. By mixing all communication in one place you are blurring the lines between the two areas of your life and may respond in a less professional manner than if it were an email. You may even share a photo that you really didn’t want to with the wrong group.
How does Another Number help?
We offer a secure second mobile number for work in an easy to use app. It’s owned and managed by the employer and easily deployed to an employee in a couple of minutes.
It offers:
Pre-Loaded Work Contacts so you don’t have to hunt for or ask people for their mobile number, which can take time and you may not feel comfortable with if you are new to an organisation.
Group Messaging so you can chat with colleagues in a secure, work-approved environment.
Broadcasts so one-off messages can be sent out to an entire group from our online portal.
Security All messages are logged but also encrypted so they’re secure but can be requested to support legal and security breaches.
GDPR Piece of Mind All work calls, messages and contacts are confined to the app. An employee’s account can be instantly disabled if they should no longer have access.
Work-life balance The work number can be switched to ‘Do not Disturb’ out of work hours so you won’t be swamped with work chats when you want to be chatting with friends and family.
So Another Number gives employees a new, easy to use tool which doesn’t infringe upon privacy and work-life balance, whilst protecting the organisation from data breaches.
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