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by Aware
Direct messaging is making its way into many offices across the country. It is a much less cumbersome form of communication than email and can bring speed, convenience and efficiency to a workplace. However, without the right safeguards in place, these strategies often come along with heavy conversation and culture risk.
Email is Simply Not Enough
Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal explored the shift of workplace communications from email to direct messages, namely texting. The article argued that email is simply not an efficient communication channel for getting work done. As an alternative, the piece focused on text messages; however, it failed to mention enterprise-grade communication solutions.
Enterprise collaboration tools such as Workplace by Facebook, Slack, Microsoft Teams and Yammer can achieve the same efficiencies as text messaging: improve teamwork, maintain high levels of employee engagement and build relationships in remote teams. When these tools are paired with risk management solutions, they’re able to maintain security and a non-toxic culture in ways that texting simply can’t.
Improve Productivity Without Being Intrusive
Enterprise collaboration allows for fast, efficient communication amongst your workforce without impeding on employees’ work life balance. Constant text messages can become overwhelming for workers and in some instances, downright intrusive.
“Many employees complain their phones now feel like a noisy block party—one that bosses and co-workers are crashing at all hours, including in group work text chains that ding incessantly into the night.” — Texting Moves to the Workplace, as Do the Awkward Misfires. ‘I’m Here. I Luv U.’, Te-Ping Chen, The Wall Street Journal
Collaboration tools such as Slack, Workplace by Facebook, Microsoft Teams and Yammer emphasize real-time collaboration, brainstorming and sharing without compromising your workforce’s privacy. These company-endorsed platforms allow employees to keep your internal, external and personal communications separate from one another.
Manage Risk with Enterprise Collaboration
Increase Oversight of Sensitive Data
Utilizing monitored enterprise collaboration tools can improve employee engagement and proactively manage conversation risk, while using texting for internal communications can endanger company-sensitive information. Texting someone to share a file’s location may seem harmless at a first glance, but can pose great risk to your company’s data.
Companies are subject to information security risk when employees use their personal devices to communicate with co-workers about where files are located, company policies or other company-specific information. The use of any unendorsed ‘shadow IT’ platform weakens your organization’s security portfolio. It’s time for organizations to take a more proactive step in managing risky communications by implementing monitored enterprise collaboration tools.
Texting Widens the eDiscovery Gap
Electronic Discovery (eDiscovery) is the practice of identifying, collecting and producing electronically stored information in response to a legal request. All electronic information can be subject to eDiscovery including text messages and data in collaboration tools.
Since text messages often do not occur through a company owned platform, it can be increasingly difficult to identify and collect needed information. Text messages are often deleted regularly making it challenging for organizations to deliver needed evidence and leaves them subject to sanctions and reputational risk.
On the other hand, communications that take place via enterprise collaboration tools are company-sponsored, and are more ready readily accessible for eDiscovery efforts. Organizations can easily enable the legal discovery of all collaboration data and avoid penalties when they pair collaboration platform with a robust archiving and eDiscovery solution.
Monitor for Offensive Communications
One in four women experience sexual harassment while at work. Instances of sexual harassment and workplace bullying are both expensive and harmful to your employees and your company. When a company’s internal communications primarily occur through text or any other non-company endorsed platform, there’s a chance that harassment and/or bullying is taking place unnoticed. Monitored enterprise collaboration tools allow companies to more proactively mitigate the risk of harassment and bullying.
Organizations can more easily identify, investigate, and respond to offensive communications that occur through monitored enterprise collaboration platforms vs those that occur through text messages.
The WSJ was spot on in the sense that email is simply not enough in today’s modern workplace, and the efficiencies that instant messaging brings to internal communications cannot be denied.
However, due to conversation and culture risks, texting is not the solution. Rather, enterprise-grade collaboration tools that work in tandem with monitoring solutions, can foster both productivity and security within your organization.
Download our Human Behavior Risk Analysis Report to understand where blind spots in your organization might be hiding.
