The Dangers of Relying on Instant Messaging in the Workplace
For small-to-medium-sized businesses, instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are vital to ensure prompt contact with your customers and your staff.
Focusing particularly on your staff, instant messaging can be great for keeping in direct contact with everyone in one group, especially over important updates that affect their day-to-day work.
For example, instant messaging apps are often used to communicate such information as:
Your working expectations during bad weather, travel disruption and other, similar events;
Last minute changes to opening hours;
Sickness absence;
Whether someone is likely to be late to work, and
To celebrate team successes, special occasions and birthdays (where staff are comfortable with this).
The Misuse of Instant Messaging
However, one big problem with apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger is that, whilst they can serve a business use, they are still social media. As staff become comfortable with them, the tone of what would otherwise be a professional conversation can be lowered.
Here are some real-life examples of what work-focused social media apps should not be used for when communicating with staff:-Sharing what illness a member of staff might have, especially when it might be related to a disability, pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, etc.
Sharing personal information and documents, such as sick notes, notification of pregnancy, details of doctor’s appointments, etc.
Making comments that either are or might be inappropriate or offensive.
Gossiping about other staff or customers.
Creating groups for cliques of staff, whilst excluding others where there is no good reason to do that.
At best, these situations can be embarrassing for the business. At worst, they could lead to grievances and potentially successful legal claims, both against the business and possibly also the individuals responsible.
The worst thing about instant messaging apps
The worst thing about instant messaging services from a business perspective is that they can be a valuable source of evidence for staff in legal claims.
Although you might delete a member of staff from a messaging app, they will likely still have access to everything to the point when they were removed from the app.
Whilst you could go through the instant messaging app deleting the relevant messages, that is time-consuming and does not guard against the member of staff having taken screenshots of those messages whilst they were an active member of the group (which would be doubly embarrassing).
Individuals also have the legal right to submit subject access requests to an organisation, which the organisation must respond to. The individual can use a subject access request to understand:
What information is being held about them;
How that information is being used;
Who that information is being shared with; and
Where the organisation got that information from.
If you do not confirm what data you are holding about a member of staff on a WhatsApp group to the individual (provided it is clear that information might be in the WhatsApp messages), then you might have infringed their rights. You might also create a suspicion, rightly or wrongly, that you are deliberately concealing information from them.
What can you do to avoid or limit this?
A key starting point is to have a staff handbook explaining:
Your approach to social media and electronic communication, which staff are expected to follow.
A disciplinary policy setting out the possible consequences of a serious breach of your rules.
A grievance policy asking staff to try and resolve concerns informally, but asking them to use a set formal process if an informal solution cannot be achieved.
A data protection policy setting out the standards for handling information.
A privacy notice, setting out your standards relating to staff members’ information and their rights.
However, policies in your staff handbook are purely the first step. They are there to provide you with the bedrock of protection if things do go wrong. Highlighting them to your staff is important, as is providing training and reminding staff of your approach if instant messages might be breaching your accepted approach on using social media and electronic communication.
This might sound like a lot, but it can help to reduce your risk of ending up in a legal claim or avoid one altogether.
What to do next?
I would encourage you not to wait until something communication-related goes wrong amongst your staff. Make sure that you have the bedrock of protection in place to ensure that you and your business are protected against future action!