Companies may frown at the practice, but the millennial worker sees no dissonance in using Facebook, Twitter or Whatsapp even while at work. In fact, Whatsapp is now almost a de facto work tool with colleagues — if not bosses — who demand status updates over chat rather than email. Indeed, the reminder that this column was due came over Whatsapp!
Now, when Facebook-at-work — the enterprise social network — arrives, the dissonance will surely vanish completely. It’s been in the beta phase for a while now but a launch is imminent any time. Royal Bank of Scotland, Club Med and Weber Shandwick are some of the companies that have been trialling Facebook’s enterprise social network version among their employees and providing feedback.
Mail takes backseat
Just like Silicon Valley’s darling workplace collaboration tool, Slack, has forced e-mail to take a backseat, Facebook-at-Work too promises to get more work done over chat and other media. It has almost all the features that the general Facebook has — news feed, notifications, messaging app, groups. The only difference is that instead of friending someone, you follow. Oh, and no Candy Crushes and Farmvilles either. An employee can create a workplace account, sign in and follow co-workers, and opt into forums and work groups.
Facebook’s launch in this space will surely be disruptive. Leading enterprise social networks such as Slack, Socialcast and the Microsoft-owned Yammer will all need to watch out — simply because Facebook has the advantage of familiarity. Most people know how to use FB, and this could be a great strength for the social network giant as it makes inroads into the workplace.
Integrated tools
On the other hand, Slack has a lot going for it. It integrates well with collaborative project management tools such as Trello and Google Documents. Several start-ups in India already use Slack and Trello in combination.
Meanwhile, even as FB@Work readies for launch, Japanese player ChatWork is expanding globally. ChatWork — like the other ESNs — has text messaging, task management and file-sharing features. It has a video chat option too, and is quite popular in such Asian countries as Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines.
Even as regressive companies frown at the practice of employees using chat messengers — such as the one in Romania that fired an employee for using Yahoo Messenger at work to send personal messages and, worse, had its case upheld by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled the company was within its rights — proactive HR managers are embracing the idea of social apps to use at work.
HR will, however, have a tough call with Facebook-at-Work for sure, as the boundaries between personal and professional will blur even more.