New Study 2020: Messaging At Work

NetSfere conducted a study in partnership with global trade body Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF) to examine trends in employee communications in 10 countries to provide insight into the proliferation of mobile device usage in the workplace, preferred employee communication channels and attitudes about data security.

The study shows that workplaces are changing dramatically with desks, PCs and fixed-line phones being replaced by mobile working. The mobile centric workplace is ushering new behaviours and trends including a shift towards consumer messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber and Line for business communications. While the use of consumer messenger apps in the workplace has been proven to drive productivity gains, many employers are currently unprepared for the data control, security and compliance issues that arise from the new era of the mobile workforce.

Few key findings from the report include:

• 56% of smartphone owners globally now use their mobiles for work.
• Consumer messaging apps are the most popular work communication channel on mobiles (50%), ahead of email (47%) and text messaging (36%) with the most popular work activities on mobile including sharing documents (29%), contacts (25%) and pictures (23%).
• Despite the widespread use of mobiles for work, most (57%) mobile users cannot categorically say whether the data shared by them and their colleagues via mobile is secure.
• Just under half of employers who take some form of action try to mitigate these risks by stipulating a preferred messaging app for employees to use.
• Employers often make ad-hoc requests to protect sensitive information in mobile messaging apps, likely in order to maintain compliance with personal data regulations.