12/24/2019 The perils of using WhatsApp at work | Financial Times

Corporate culture
The perils of using WhatsApp at work
Workplace chat groups can act like a virtual water cooler, but they are also risky

Messaging services such as Slack, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram can be invaluable but employers and employees should beware © FT montage

Emma Jacobs OCTOBER 5 2017

A WhatsApp group proved invaluable to Gillian Keegan after she was elected member of
parliament for Chichester in the UK’s June election. By messaging the group for female
Conservative politicians with the free alternative to SMS on her private phone, Ms Keegan could
tap into the collective experience of her new peers, which includes MPs with more than 20
years’ parliamentary experience.

With a swipe of her smartphone, she found advice on dealing with social media abuse,
interviews with the press, managing a rural constituency, Post Office closures, and even
gardening tips. Describing the group as a “Mumsnet for politicians”, Ms Keegan, who previously
worked in finance, IT and manufacturing, prefers WhatsApp to email — the tone is informal and
supportive. By contrast, emails tend to be business-related and overwhelming. “You wade
through [diverse] stuff, you get distracted,” she says. She is a member of several political
WhatsApp groups, and groups for her office and family.

While informal workplace chat groups can be informative, they are also risky. Employees may
find themselves bullied, excluded or overloaded. When used inappropriately, messaging services
could damage an employer’s reputation.

WhatsApp and others are attractive in part because of end-to-end encryption which means that
only the messenger and the individual recipient or group can see text messages, photos and
videos. Other apps, such as Signal (used by US National Security Agency whistleblower Ed
Snowden) and Telegram, offer encrypted messaging services. Confide, another service, has
reportedly been used by some staff in the White House.
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Gillian Keegan uses a messaging group that she describes as a 'Mumsnet for politicians' © Chris McAndrew/Creative Commons
Encryption is particularly appealing to those working in the political world, as a way of leaking
stories to the press and forging conspiratorial cliques, as well as the more prosaic matter of
communicating business information to colleagues. But messaging services are popular beyond
politics and in all manner of workplaces.

One study of emergency surgical teams using WhatsApp found chat groups flattened the
hierarchy, allowing junior trainees to access more experienced clinicians, who provided support
and supervision. Separate research, published in the Journal of Information Technology
Education, that studied WhatsApp as a communication tool between teachers and students
found the app enhanced relationships.

There are many benefits, says André Spicer, professor of organisational behaviour at the Cass
Business School at City, University of London. “It makes communication less costly and more
transparent.” However, it could overwhelm people by adding another information stream
employees need to check, further blurring the line between home and the office.

Slack, an alternative to emails, is encouraged by many employers as a secure way of

communicating, and in the process has become yet another work-related communication
system to monitor.

Boundaries are important. Ms Keegan says she

would never send WhatsApp messages to her office
WhatsApp is primarily used over the weekend as “it would oblige [the team] to
for gossiping and bitching. I respond. As a manager you have to be careful how
work in an office where the you use it.”
millennials sit there all day
The informality of such messaging services may
on WhatsApp, messaging
prove more intrusive than email. Ms Keegan’s
each other and sniggering husband, Michael Keegan, UK & Ireland chairman
like school children of Fujitsu, the Japanese IT equipment and services
A CIPD respondent company, takes a different approach. “I would
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never send junior staff WhatsApp messages over

the weekend but with a senior staff member I
might.”

That informality is a double-edged sword. As the schools noted, teachers came up against “foul
language and behaviour”. That is hardly restricted to teenagers — it is also a problem with
workers. Recently, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the professional body
for HR managers, asked practitioners about the impact of WhatsApp groups — both formal and
those set up for advice, socialising and gossip — on the corporate culture. Twenty-six per cent of
respondents thought they enhanced the workplace, encouraging collaboration and providing an
opportunity for mutual support.

Others were pessimistic — 40 per cent believed they undermined corporate culture. Said one
anonymous HR manager: “[It] can be a great benefit for employees as long as [it is] used for the
correct reason. It can, however, be too easy for people to act inappropriately and find
themselves in breach of policies without realising the impact of their behaviour.”

Another respondent was more blunt. “WhatsApp is primarily used for gossiping and bitching. I
work in an office where the millennials sit there all day on WhatsApp, messaging each other and
sniggering like school children.” And another described it as a “tool for bullying”, used to
exclude people from post-work drinks, or leaving colleagues out of groups.

David D’Souza, the head of engagement and London for CIPD, is sanguine about WhatsApp,
seeing it as an extension of water cooler chat. “People have always criticised their employer [and
colleagues] but before it happened in the pub.” Technology merely reflects the corporate culture,
he says. “WhatsApp by itself doesn’t bully colleagues.”

Yet secure and informal messaging services such as WhatsApp lure employees into committing
off-the-cuff remarks to text. Unlike after-work drinks, there is a record of a conversation that
can easily be passed to others, for example if messages are forwarded. Much rests on trust, says
Ms Keegan. “You are lulled into a sense of security. What happens on tour, stays on tour is the
implicit contract.” Yet information may be leaked by accident rather than intent, as was the case
with the Labour MP who accidentally sent a mocking message to the wrong group.

Simon Kerr-Davis, employment counsel at Linklaters, the law firm, notes that using WhatsApp
on a work phone provides ample scope for breaching employer guidelines by causing offence to
the recipient of a message, reputational damage to an employer or releasing confidential
information.

Over time, workers have come to realise the risks of email, and have changed how they use it at
work. But while employees get used to the likes of WhatsApp, they mistakenly think it is a
temporary form of communication.

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Similarly, people are used to knowing that a work laptop belongs to their employer, but do not
necessarily feel that their phone does. “If the device is owned by the employer . . . then it is
entirely legitimate for the employer to monitor usage, provided it is made clear to the employee
that the employer reserves that right.”

Laws differ across the globe — Germany, for example is regarded as the most restrictive
regarding data privacy, and employers have limited rights to monitor and review messages sent
by employees, even on a work device, says Mr Kerr-Davis. In the UK, if an employer is clear in
its policy, it can “call for the return of the device and access the content in order to investigate
any concerns about the use of the device”.

For employees with WhatsApp on work phones, a good rule, says Carole Theriault, infosecurity
communications expert at Tick Tock Social, is to think before using work devices or applications
for personal use. “If you want to keep something private from work, keep it entirely off their
radar and their systems,” she advises.

Banker ban: navigating grey areas

In March, the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK financial regulator, fined Christopher
Niehaus, then a banker at Jefferies, more than £37,000 for passing confidential client
information to a “personal acquaintance and a friend” on WhatsApp to “impress”.
Many banks, including Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, have banned WhatsApp and other
communication tools, on work mobile devices.
However, personal phones are a different matter entirely. As one former banker observes, there
are grey areas. When a client is also your friend, and you are discussing matters outside work
one minute, it is not unusual to jump to a work question on the same messaging service as the
topic arises.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2019. All rights reserved.

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