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Messaging Apps Can Cause Morale, Reputation and Compliance Issues in Business and at Work

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As a member of several coworking spaces, I love using the messaging app Slack as a communication vehicle – it keeps me up-to-date on events, etc. and it’s a quick way to sent a direct message to individuals. Like other messaging vehicles like email, text messages, etc. – it needs to be used thoughtfully and strategically, as it can conveniently document morale, reputation and compliance issues – speaking from my own experience using such convenient documentation in employee harassment and other workplace investigations.

The story this week about how a startup CEO uses Slack to communicate almost exclusively with her employees with the intention to include the entire company in Slack “conversations” so no one is excluded from important company communications and its subsequent morale-killing impact on her employees is an Employee Communications 101 cautionary tale.

Not only is the almost sole use of emails, texts and messaging substandard employee communication vehicles in comparison to the recommended in-person communication (written employee communication ideally works best as a follow-up to face-to-face communication), it also conveniently documents the CEO’s clear need for leadership and communication development and coaching.  At minimum, it’s poor form to shame any employee in person or in writing in front of the whole company out of personal frustration, aside from the other numerous negative impacts of her Slack communications to the company.

More concerning from a compliance standpoint are the endemic cultural attempts to suppress communication between employees, particularly when they have concerns about the terms and conditions of their employment. Best not to chill such communications, as they may risk noncompliance with the National Labor Relations Act:

The NLRB and Social Media

The National Labor Relations Act protects the rights of employees to act together to address conditions at work, with or without a union. This protection extends to certain work-related conversations conducted on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Especially when failing to pay overtime and taking away accrued benefits like PTO as a punishment – also clear compliance issues.

And while we’re talking about the strategic and thoughtful use of messaging apps: some quick compliance advice about Snapchat. Managers should not communicate with their employees at all on Snapchat, as the app is designed to delete messages soon after they’re shared (although there are ways to screen-print Snapchat messages). The intent and impact is to automatically delete potentially non-compliant communications between a manager and their employee, e.g. sexually, etc. harassing messages.

How do you use messaging apps to enhance employee communication in your organization while at the same time studiously avoiding morale, reputation and compliance issues in business and at work?