Communication is a big deal, especially when it comes to work-related chats.
We all know WhatsApp is awesome for chatting with friends and family, but guess what? It might not be your best bet for talking to employees.
In this article, we’re going to break it down for you with six reasons why WhatsApp might not be the smartest choice for employee communication.
Let’s dive into it:
1. You cannot use WhatsApp to communicate with your employers.
There is nothing bad about using WhatsApp for personal use. I use it myself as my main form of communication with friends and family. Easy.
But WhatsApp’s Terms of Service state that corporate use of the app is strictly prohibited.
Yeah, you might say it: But I can use WhatsApp Business for that, can’t I?
Well, yes and no.
If you can make sure all your employees also have the WhatsApp Business installed instead of their personal one. That’s fine…
But the truth is you can’t.
Small business owners make fantastic use of WhatsApp Business to communicate with their customers.
But, employee communication has to follow certain rules that most traditional messaging apps do not provide.
Like ensuring GDPR compliance in communication and setting clear communication boundaries with employees.
2. Gen Z really cares about their needs. Communication boundaries are one of them.
This guy, Rajiv Talreja, explains that the main challenge when retaining employees is to understand their pains and needs.
You are dealing with a generation that has different expectations when it comes to work.
According to Talreja, this is the generation of the social revolution.
What does this mean?
This means that they don’t care about your salary promotion. If your business does not have a culture where work and personal life boundaries are a priority, they will not stay.
That’s why everything you do as a manager/business owner internally has to keep this in mind. Especially when it comes to communication.
As I mentioned before, there is no harm in using WhatsApp for personal communication. That’s why most people do.
But because of that, the use of work-related communication makes the employees feel they never stop working or that they can get in trouble if they do not reply to a message.
The survey by Excel Recruitment showed that around 58% of employees feel they are “permanently on call” when it comes to work-related WhatsApp groups and that they are obliged to answer a message outside of work hours.
They also found that 32% felt they would get in trouble at work if they didn’t reply.
This led us to our third reason:
3. Poor communication boundaries can affect your profits.
Yeah. You read that right.
Having a boundary for communication can affect your employees’ productivity and the way that they interact with your customers.
A happy customer will always come back. The unhappy customer will not come back and can also spread negative word of mouth about your business.
A Havard Business study showed that companies that invest in employees’ experience are 4x more profitable than the ones that do not.
This comes while a new global study has revealed that 46% of senior executives at high-end hotels are “very concerned” about staff retention and hiring new talent.
Poor communication boundaries lead to a poor employee experience. Those employees will not stay with you and will also cost you more.
By investing in your employees, you can increase productivity, have better customer service, and ultimately, earn higher profits.
4. You cannot guarantee data protection.
This might be one of the less obvious reasons not to use the tool for work-related communications.
While WhatsApp and other popular instant communication tools do not store your messages, they do store the information of all users, including contacts that haven’t even downloaded the app.
As a business, you are responsible for the protection of your staff’s data.
The app states that names, timestamps, and mobile phone numbers are maintained on their services forever.
You are also required to share your contact list when joining the app if you want to use all the app functionalities.
Under the GDPR, businesses need to keep a record of permissions from people whose data they store. – another admin task for you!
5. You have no control over the content that is being shared.
While you can see the messages that are being shared across the groups you are in on WhatsApp, you have little control over them.
This can mean you can deal with loads of messages getting lost.
Your important question on “Who is available to help John in room 305 clean – the room is extra dirty?” can get lost by that super funny meme your receptionist sent…
You will have to manually send “Let’s keep this chat for only work-related conversations, guys! Please!”.
You can also create different groups for different information across different locations.
But without a tool that would speed up this process, can you tell how much time will be lost to set it up after you just hired a new staff? Or how can you ensure no one is being bullied by another group chat you were not aware of?
WhatsApp is good for personal use. Not to communicate with your staff.
6. It’s hard to create a community around your business
This might be related to the fact that you do not have any control over the messages that are being shared on your business group chat.
This can affect how your company values are spread over the business.
We do talk a lot about how hard it is to maintain consistent standards of food preparation and quality when working for franchises. (MrBeast Burguer by the YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” is facing problems because he has very little control over its partner restaurants to ensure standards of food quality.)
Consistency is a necessity in all parts of your business. It is what makes everyone sync and feel part of the same big group.
WhatsApp and other personal instant messaging communications were not designed to deal with the needs of business owners and front-line managers.
Having a platform where you can see if your company values are being shared across all locations and franchises is one of those needs.
It may help you solve internal problems that you did not even know existed when you started in the first place.
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In a nutshell, while WhatsApp is awesome for chatting with friends and family, it’s not the best choice for employee communication.
What’s the alternative to using WhatsApp for employee communication?
Bizimply Connect was designed specifically for retail, restaurant, and hospitality businesses. Providing personalised tools to meet your unique needs:
If you want to keep your work and personal life separate and be able to have better control over your company culture with employee communication: Make sure to have a chat with us!
If you are a Bizimply customer, get in touch with your Customer Success Manager today!
Interested in learning how Bizimply can enhance not only your employee communication but all your workforce management? Book a demo with one of our sales team today!
