E-mail is so last century: Chat apps are now preferred at work
WHATSAPP, Skype and other chat apps are not only taking over our private lives, but also our work environments.
That’s the conclusion of a survey conducted by the market research company Respondi and commissioned by job search engine Indeed. More than half of the surveyed job holders (52%) used such messaging services to communicate with other colleagues.
The most popular messaging service was WhatsApp, but Facebook, Google, Skype and Twitter were also used. Almost a third of people who used a messenger service also used the good old SMS.
In some cases, messaging services had replaced e-mail as a medium of communication. A third of the messenger users (31%) said they wrote fewer e-mails at work these days, but more chat messages.
The most popular reason for using messenger apps was organisational matters. Two thirds of respondents used them to finalise internal details (67%) and a similar proportion to schedule appointments (64%).
Only 14% had used a messenger service to share confidential information about a project. However, 70% had used a messenger app for private communication, to share photos and videos, or to arrange meetings in their free time.
Respondi sent the survey out to 1,980 job holders in September. — dpa