![]() ![]() Most messages can easily wait until the next business day. Unless the communication is extremely time-sensitive, resist this urge. Instant messaging systems allows us to reach out to colleagues, reports, and bosses at any time - in a way that might seem more urgent than email. And HR teams should be trained on protocols for addressing complaints and concerns. They should also be carefully reiterated over time. These should be immediately designed and delivered to current staff and introduced to new hires during onboarding. To reap the social benefits of these tools, while minimizing the risks of employee distraction or diminished mental health, organizations should clearly define expectations for personal messaging. Liking your colleagues has also shown to increase engagement by 700%. These digital interactions create camaraderie, and people are less likely to leave their jobs when they have friends at the office. They can also be unintended outlets for bullying, abuse, and harassment, where group messages are shared about a coworker’s outfit, mannerisms, or sex life, despite that colleague sitting only two desks away.īut there are benefits to workers messaging about non-business topics, too. Slack and Teams can be distracting, especially when they’re used as an online employee repository for GIFs, jokes, and debates over sports games and TV plot lines. Embrace all kinds of instant messaging – but set ground rules. That platform itself doesn’t have to become the official IM standard for the company, but it can be integrated into a larger messaging system. This includes identifying which ones people are currently using selecting one that is both popular and suited to your organization modifying it to fit your needs creating policies for appropriate use, archiving, and safekeeping educating managers on use and risk factors training HR reps and regularly readdressing processes and procedures to improve.įor example, at a small tech startup, many team members may already use Facebook Messenger as a means of socializing, both on and offsite. Rather than starting from scratch with a workplace IM system, companies should build upon what employees already know and like. Popular instant messaging dates back to the early 2000s, and Slack, in particular, has been gaining traction for years. Adopt the tools your employees are already using. ![]() How a given workplace chooses to use IM, if at all, is up to them, but with Slack and Teams becoming the norm within most organizations, here are some suggested best practices. ![]() But they remain a struggle, which indicates that companies haven’t quite cracked how to design and implement policies that properly guide and govern workplace instant messaging. And it’s no surprise that IM has created legal snafus for organizations instant messages discussing potential litigation can, ironically, be used in those lawsuits. Ease of communication also breeds distraction and informality, where instant messaging becomes a natural conduit to share non-work related information, including details, sometimes inappropriate, of workers’ personal lives. These systems can create communication silos, where teams who are highly integrated in one platform are unable to collaborate with departments rooted in another. There’s just one problem: We’re still figuring out how to properly, and professionally, communicate via IM. And instant messaging trounces email by offering immediate and clearer resolution to business concerns that may have lingered unnoticed in inboxes. Even in the early 2000s, researchers noted how instant messaging helped to decrease needless, back-and-forth phone calls and alleviate miscommunications. The benefits of these tools have quickly become obvious. It has competitors, too, including Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Slack has been enthusiastically integrated into the day-to-day functions of legacy corporations and burgeoning startups: The company claims that, in 2019, it hosted 10+ million daily users. “I’ll Slack you.” In workplaces around the world, the name of the popular online messaging system has become a verb, just like Google. To get all of HBR’s content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter. ![]() In these difficult times, we’ve made a number of our coronavirus articles free for all readers. ![]()
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