I've been reading up on IM Usage at work for sometime now. IM is not permitted and neither installed in the company I work for, hence my interest in gathering facts about how it affects work. Here's something I've written based on my readings.
Instant Messaging, or IM as it is more commonly known, is like a middle-ground between Telephones and Emails. A small icon that rests in your System tray (near the clock), it pops open a resizable window when double-clicked or when someone sends you a message. You can start exchanging messages instantly in real-time, or as I would prefer to call it: have a textual conversation.
What started off almost a decade back as software to reach out across the globe to make friends and chat away has now been adapted by business units world-wide as a fast and cost-effective mode of communication. No longer do you have to call or email just to ask him/her for a yes or a no. Swapping industry information and sharing expertise instantly instead of waiting for an email reply, making a call or walking down the hall speeds up response times and therefore increases productivity.
Without taking your eyes off the screen or your fingers off the key-board (or a hand off the mouse), communicating with essentials becomes as accessible as working on the applications that are now open in your taskbar. I am working on Excel and DFO at the same time as typing out this mail. But all these come to a halt if I have to shift "mind-gears" to receive or make a phone-call. IM allows one to know who is 'calling' before answering and gives that few extra seconds to think about what they might want. The same goes for busy days when one really can't take on any non-immediate communication. IM is not as intrusive as a phone call. If someone pings (messages on IM) and you are in the middle of something, it's quite easy to say 'Busy...ttyl' rather than have to answer the phone. ("ttyl" stands for "talk to you later.")
When people at a Call-Centre have to communicate with a colleague while being on a call or while there are more calls waiting, it can be real difficult to put your client/colleague on hold to make another call. Or to wait for an email when you are looking for information urgently (Call-centre to Doc-team: "Do you think we can make a dispatch within 40 minutes?" / Front-Desks to eBSG: "Unable to Paper-ticket on Air Canada, do you know entry in Galileo?"). For the one at the other end of the line, it's akin to a taxi driver stopping the taxi and leaving you in the car for a few minutes while he goes away asking for directions. But with an IM service at your fingertips, your work is continuous with access to an immensely multiplied support system. Not unlike a GPS map screen guiding your driver's directions.
Furthermore, it adds a benefit that verbal communication lags in - records of information exchange. Chats can be logged and monitored centrally, as well as stored locally. Any chat session is saved as a (rich) text file hardly taking from a few hundred bytes to a few kilobytes - and this in a generation when the smallest USB drives can store 50,000 such chat sessions (that's worth seven years at the rate of 20 different conversations every day of the calendar year).
The biggest obstacle corporates face in deploying IM at the work-place is the view that it eats up valuable time of the employees in non-work-related chats. But this itself should be considered a very big advantage for larger corporations that have offices spread out not only on multiple floors but across geographic locations. The bigger the company, the less aware are colleagues of each other. Bridging these distances with an IM link takes little time away, but in turn enables peers to bond and form stronger working relationships - all while avoiding long distance call charges! Dealing with partners world-wide (global/regional HRG Accounts) where time-differences matter is made feasible. Sending a message also helps when you want to leave a note for someone.
And yet, you can always set your IM status to "Away" or "Busy" to avoid receiving communication before it is sent. Most IMs now come equipped with customizable status/messages that lets others recognize instantly your availability ("Out for Lunch") or need of help ("Need 1xJ DXBJFK 18SEP!")
At
windowsecutiy.com, you can find some very practical and simple guidelines to keep IM from becoming a bane to a business:
- IM should not be used as a substitute for e-mail. IM should be used only for questions or announcements that are short and need to be communicated immediately.
- Users should take advantage of IM software features that allow you to present yourself as “busy” or “offline” so they will not be compelled to respond to numerous queries.
- Users should never register with public directories that allow any and everyone to IM you; instead, users should maintain contact or “buddy” lists of people who can see their online status, and the list should be restricted to legitimate business contacts.
- Users should not be allowed to install their own IM software on company computers. If IM is to be part of your company’s communications cadre, the software and its configuration should be standardized and controlled by the IT department as with other business software.
- IM should never be used for confidential communications of any kind unless the IM client supports message encryption.
If your industry is regulated, you may need to implement an enterprise level IM system that allows you to record all IM communications.
Creating a policy is only the first step. The policy must be disseminated to employees and there must be mechanisms in place to enforce them. One enforcement mechanism is stated penalties for violation. Another is to technologically enforce policies.
The onus is on the company to trust its employees to not misuse a neutral technology - very much like telephones, Internet Access or Email. Educating employees is as important as facilitating them with a tool that makes their work easier, more efficient and fun.
Microsoft has released Windows Messenger®, a corporate version of MSN Messenger® that forms a part of MS Windows XP® which gives all the benefits of a regular IM, at the same time limiting communications to the internal network only as connected on MS Outlook®. This avoids employees from straying off work to family and friends around the globe, as well as provides an added security to protect the corporate network from Web intruders.
** Now Voice Chats have also become quite prevalent through IM, but this generally requires a high-bandwidth line for any decent quality of voice transfer.
