Comms Chaos: Employees Turn Towards Unapproved Apps

Maintel research shows employees using 'unsanctioned' comms platforms

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Published: October 24, 2018

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

According to a recent report by Maintel, today’s employees are more than happy to use their own unsanctioned communications applications if they’re not comfortable with the tools provided at work. In a survey of 1,000 employees throughout the UK, a substantial number of respondents claimed that they would prefer to use consumer-grade comms tools at work, like Snapchat (24%), Twitter (19%) or Facebook (17%).

Maintel, innovators in the managed communications market, also revealed that there’s a serious disconnected between the platform’s businesses provide for their employees, and the solutions workers would like to use to communicate. Maintel believes that the issues in the workplace today are leading to “communications chaos”, not to mention a range of serious compliance and security risks.

Do Employees Prefer Unapproved Apps?

Maintel’s report suggests that consumer-focused tools like WhatsApp, Instagram and others are more popular than many of the enterprise-level platforms that companies invest in. Three in ten employees said that they use WhatsApp for at least two hours a day.

Not only are consumer-focused tools more popular, but employees are using these platforms more frequently too. The respondents in Maintel’s study said that they’ve increased their use of certain apps significantly in the last three years. For instance, 62% reported increased use of WhatsApp, 87% have been using Facetime more often, and 77% admit to using Snapchat more frequently.

At the moment, most of these consumer-focused apps are being accessed for activities that aren’t related to work. Most of the time, consumer-grade tools are the apps that employees use to connect with friends and family members. Additionally, the security risks that come from allowing employees to use unsanctioned consumer tools at work also mean that many of the platforms end up getting blocked in the workplace. Instagram isn’t approved in around 41% of organisations.

However, there’s nothing stopping Unapproved Apps from becoming a more significant part of the workplace communication environment.

How Can Employers Stop Communication Chaos?

According to the CTO at Maintel, Rufus Grig, there’s a reason why today’s employers offer their workers a specific set of sanctioned and safe tools to use. Today’s businesses want to improve productivity and efficiency, but they know that they have compliance and security issues to address too. Unfortunately, when employees refuse to use these tools, it’s generally because the experience they’re getting simply doesn’t match up to what they’d expect from consumer platforms like WhatsApp and Facetime.

Ultimately, blocking consumer tools and asking employees not to use certain apps only works to a certain extent. Companies also need to think about how they can work alongside their staff members to address the issues they’re facing with the professional tools available to them. After all, the only way a business-based communication app can be successful, is if your teams are using it. Maintel believe that although balancing user experience (UX) and compliance can be a challenge, it’s something that businesses need to address.

Maintel recommends 3 steps for companies who want to avoid communication chaos:

  • Listen to users: Maintel believes that businesses should be making more of an effort to listen to the problems that users have with mandated communication platforms. Only when you listen to the needs of your workers can you provide a tool that really empowers them and improves their productivity
  • Give policies to all platforms: Maintel also suggests that businesses need to create more in-depth policies for all their communications systems – whether they’re corporate-approved or not. Policies should be completely clear about how employees are expected to communicate at work, and managers need to explain why these policies are important to their staff, to help improve adherence
  • Persuasion over compulsion: Finally, Maintel believes that simply blocking or banning applications isn’t the best way to drive change in the workforce. Ultimately, banning software causes employees to resent the companies that they work for, because they’re being forced to use apps that they feel don’t support their productivity. There needs to be a good reason why a business is encouraging a specific communications tool

Ultimately, just like with the rise of BYOD, simply ignoring the problem of unsanctioned app use, or trying to ban it out of existence isn’t enough. Companies that seriously want to enhance the communication and collaboration landscape need to listen to the needs of their employees and respond accordingly.

 

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