With the rise in remote work in recent years, more companies have adopted messaging systems like Slack and Microsoft Teams to boost employee collaboration. In fact, more than 100,000 employers, including 77 of the Fortune 100, are Slack subscribers, according to the company.
Slack and other tools can contribute to the productivity of an organization, but using them creates a specific set of issues. Cyberbullying has become a problem at some firms, for example.
At the luggage company Away, former employees reported that the CEO would talk negatively to employees on Slack, creating a toxic work environment. At another employer, an employee felt uncomfortable because a colleague was harassing her on Slack, but she wasn’t allowed to block that person’s messages. Because of these and other concerns, some companies have started monitoring Slack messages.
Employers that utilize Slack and similar messaging tools do so for several reasons: It is quicker than email, allows for group chats and activities, and keeps everyone updated in real time. Plus, research shows that members of Generation Z prefer instant messaging tools for work communication over emails or texts.
“These are tools to help communicate and engage employees to increase productivity,” said James Abeyta Stevens, SHRM-CP, a former CHRO who is currently an instructor at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque. Unlike social media platforms, he said, which workers can make private and separate from their work, Slack is fully part of numerous workplaces.
Monitoring Slack for Safety
With so many different levels of employees using Slack, some companies are choosing to monitor it to avoid issues.
Victoria Pelletier has managed companies of all sizes, from 250 to 750,000 employees. Some of them monitored Slack and other collaboration tools along with the overall digital footprint of employees.
“[They did this] to assess engagement, retention risk, skills and career paths,” said Pelletier, a C-suite veteran who was recently a managing director at Accenture and has also worked at American Express, IBM and Brookfield. They also looked for potentially fraudulent activities, she said, as well as monitored employee sentiment. “However, they rarely go back to an individual employee or their manager with it.”
While employers typically will not monitor communication between employees, “some may have retention protocols to allow security to review if any complaints or investigations are brought forward,” she said.
At Yeespy, a New York-based software company with 30 employees, CEO Peter Michaels monitors his employees’ use of Slack. “Monitoring enables me to assess the company’s general mood and deal with any possible problems before they become more serious,” he explained. “For instance, I observed some team members’ uncertainty on a recent assignment, and I was able to ensure the project’s success by stepping in early on Slack to clarify expectations and encourage a more efficient workflow.”
And if someone says something negative about the company, Michaels will be proactive in trying to address the issue. “I take care of it right away by starting a chat or sending a private message,” he explained. “I support an open discourse that fosters honest communication, since constructive criticism is important for business progress.”
In Stevens’ experience with these communication tools, “HR typically would intervene if there’s a valid reason or indication that the platforms are being used for other purposes or for personal gain,” he said.
Setting Ground Rules
It’s critical to develop and communicate ground rules in your employee handbook for using Slack, as well as for all other instant communication platforms, and to make sure that all employees know those guidelines, said Lytana Kids, a senior HR consultant at Flex HR in Roswell, Ga. “[Slack guidelines] should be an entire policy of [their] own,” she said.
Steve Lovig, also an HR consultant at Flex HR, uses Microsoft Teams. While his company doesn’t actively monitor Teams, it does outline rules for the platform in its handbook.
“Our policy spoke to keeping negative comments internal; employees were encouraged to bring up concerns to their manager, C-suite, HR or our employee resources group,” he said. “The policy also addressed that employees should have no expectation of privacy in any of their electronic messaging and that the company has the right and ability to view any of the messages.”
Above all else, HR needs to inform employees that Slack communication needs to be professional, said Eric Mochnacz, SHRM-SCP, director of operations and a senior consultant at Red Clover, an HR consulting firm based in Kinnelon, N.J.
“We treat Slack as our ‘office’ when remote,” he said, pointing out that he doesn’t monitor conversations. “It’s a way for us to share business-relevant information and communicate quickly with each other should we not be in the office or on a phone or video call. Our policies about anti-harassment and discrimination also apply to our Slack channels, so we all understand that we should make every effort to maintain professionalism aligned with our company values and aligned with our communication expectations.”
Mochnacz is open about the fact that Slack communication would be considered discoverable in a lawsuit, so he tells employees: “Don’t say things in Slack that you wouldn’t say at the water cooler or in front of the CEO.” He added that Red Clover has set clear expectations about appropriate discussions in their Slack channels.
“We also believe trust is paramount to a working relationship, and we trust each of us is engaging appropriately in DMs [direct messages] and private threads,” Mochnacz said. “As standard practice, no employee should ever have a reasonable expectation of privacy with any communication tool provided by the company, and most handbooks outline this practice. Am I comfortable if my boss should ever read my Slack threads? Absolutely. But does that mean I should communicate as if they won’t be read? Absolutely not.”
To Monitor or Not to Monitor?
Deciding whether to monitor Slack, Teams and similar tools depends on a company’s culture. While monitoring can be proactive in avoiding issues, Mochnacz stressed that it can ultimately create a feeling of mistrust in an organization.
“Although I’ve not been in a situation where people use Slack as the location for water cooler gossip, people, at times, do feel comfortable speaking freely,” he said. “They may make a joke or share a funny picture or engage on a topic they feel strongly about, and if they know they’re being monitored, it may shut down communication altogether. They may begin hiding everything, including work-relevant discussions, because they’re afraid of how it will be perceived.”
If you choose to monitor, make sure that you’re letting your employees know up front, Kids said, and send them reminders, as well. “You [should] send messages frequently to let them know their Slack messages are owned by the company, that they must comply with the guidelines, and that their messages can and will be monitored,” she said.
Kylie Ora Lobell is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.