The growing popularity of 'online chat' in the workplace

Online chat applications are now increasingly used by companies and workplaces. AFP

Want to become Facebook friends with your boss? Or may be used together with a colleague while snapchat office hours?



How to use social networks like this is increasingly popular as a way to avoid corporate email.

In fact, for the sake of simplifying internal communications, companies began turning to chat applications like Chatter, Slack, and Yammer, and the more common platforms such as Facebook.

The market for social applications for the company to reach at least US $ 8 billion (more than Rp100 trillion) in 2019, an increase of US $ 3 billion of the current market value, according to research firm Markets and Markets.

Of course, we already have a corporate intranet network for almost 20 years, but now many mobile-friendly applications that transform the communication style.

In January 2015, Facebook announced a business networking platform, Facebook at Work, and has recently launched a Work Chat chat client.

Social networking giant Facebook, with 1.5 billion users, want to dominate the enterprise market, as well as the private domain.

Facebook has signed up more than 300 companies in a variety of sizes, including Heineken, Lagardere, and Hootsuite.

'Culture of cooperation'

So far, the biggest successful collaboration is with the Royal Bank of Scotland. At the end of last October, after a successful pilot program, the bank launched Facebook at Work for 100 thousand employees in 2016.

Why?

Kevin Hanley, head of design at RBS said the move was taken to encourage cooperation between different divisions. Facebook at Work is "a key component in fostering a culture of cooperation that is more transparent and alive", he said.

The workings of Facebook at Work as a personal Facebook.

This sentiment is supported by Julien Codorniou, director of global collaboration platform Facebook. He said that in this way not only to communicate but also boost productivity.

"We believe that the more connected workplace is workplace more productive," said Codorniou. "We want to connect three billion people worldwide. All you need is a mobile phone. We give voice to all people."

Facebook at Work function as well as personal Facebook, and familiarity that contribute to the success of the program in RBS.

Short message

One of the most unique reasons to try out new methods of communication in the workplace is becoming an efficient alternative to corporate email can be overwhelming.

Sage accounting software company applying Chatter communication portal for business in April 2015.

Sandra CampoPiano, the company's head of human resources, said there were 9,000 topics have been moved from email to "short message directly, openly, in the group and an active forum."

Andy Jankowski, founder of Enterprise Strategies, corporate communications company, explained that the advantages of social networking these efforts lies in the ability to make conversation more natural and as a direct conversation.

Email era end?

However, whether this means a new way of communicating email era end?

Analysts say this platform is really just one-way communication method. The sender had no effective way to determine whether they are relevant to the content of the message or understood, and recipients often have to read long emails that actually do not need them to see.

"Overloading email is a common phenomenon in many companies, so employees often do not read all that they receive," said Jankowski.

Employees often do not read all the emails they receive. Thinkstock

"As a result, employees do not know the situation arises because of the development of email that they do not read."

By moving email to social networks, people can choose to enter and exit the group so there is a clear and quick way to share information and solve problems, they said.

Jankowski think email is still the best way to communicate with one person or a small group, but the end of a broadcast email to many people seemed to be getting close.

Waste of time?

There are concerns receive chat conversations and updates can disrupt the work and reduced productivity.

However, according to Hanley and CampoPiano, quite the contrary. With people can get out of the conversation irrelevant, they are saving time.

Codorniou said that while employees access Facebook at Work up to 50 times a day, all talk about work.

Security

One problem that may arise and make companies think twice before using the force of social media for internal communication is data security.

Could the internal communication network to build a culture of cooperation as well as on an ant? (asaf)

EU cancels Safe Harbour agreement means that companies can not assume that the service providers in the US offer privacy protection.

And in the US, the US government could get the data using the Patriot Act.

Maybe that should be discussed, better offline.

Source: Catherine Lawson | bbc