Instant Messaging an Integral Part of Corporate Landscape Is a Risk with Use of Personal Devices, A Serious Threat or Can It Be Overlooked!
Karma Global Possesses a Panel of International Experts Be It (1) Strategy Consultant (2) Management Consultant (3) Operations Consultant (4) Financial Advisory Consultant and (5) Human Resource Consultant!
Karma Management has now become Karma Global which was incorporated in the year 2004, having now completed almost 18 years of its existence.
As late as April 2021, Karma Global took a very bold step of venturing into foreign shores in terms of shoving up its business prospects in countries like the US, the UK, UAE, Canada, the Philippines, and South East Asia.
It has already made its mark in terms of providing excellent services in the areas of payroll, outsourcing, recruitment, talent acquisition, facility management services, and regulatory compliances including immigration, negotiations, and employment contracts in these foreign countries as well.
The major services provided by Karma Global include Regulatory Audit, Management Consulting, Strategy Consulting, Financial & Tech Advisory, Risk Advisory, and Legal.
It follows a strict culture of work and ethics with highly motivated and zealous employees. The company values traits like loyalty, integrity, and dynamism.
Karma Global thus entails the compliance of international clients in keeping with the global scenario, thereby undertaking a noteworthy mission of guiding clients through a spider’s web of legislation so that clients are able to stay on the right side of the ever-changing laws especially if, it keeps an update on what is happening around the world as far as people, wages, work, benefits, employment contracts, negotiation, and unions are concerned.
Karma Global’s decades of experience in making sure that clients are compliant with all types of changing legislation offers unique support to mitigate risk and grasp technological solutions with a combination of expertise.
Disruptive technologies, as well as new market competitors, will continue to challenge the long-term economic hegemony of Agencies, Institutions, and Governance and will need the assistance of tech-enabled consultants like Karma Global. In order to avoid becoming bystanders in the race for digitalization, companies of all sizes are engaging consulting firms in order to assist them with technological and business transformations. Meanwhile, with a sustained period of geo-political uncertainty arising from the unknown areas, Global clients are keen to re-examine their international operations, in order to plan for worst-case scenarios relating to new crises that may arise from such unpredictable variables. Therefore, this is the right time to look up to Karma Global for any and all international operations in the fields mentioned above.
Instant Messaging is an Integral Part of the Corporate Landscape Is a Risk with the Use of Personal Devices, A Serious Threat, or Can It Be Overlooked?
Foremost Questions to be answered on Company using Business Text Messaging Platforms?
What instant messaging apps and platforms are employees using?
Are the in-use messaging platforms equipped with security features such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, and geofencing?
How and when are employees using instant messaging mobile apps, web apps, and messaging systems that are integrated with robust software platforms?
What devices are employees using to communicate? Are they personal devices, company-owned devices, or both?
Are employees using instant messaging apps to communicate with co-workers only or are they texting people outside of the business, such as customers, clients, and vendors?
Does the company have access to all messaging data? If the answer is “yes,” consider whether efficient data management is currently possible.
Is the company’s preferred instant messaging platform moderated? If so, how effectively is it moderated?
What Steps Should Firms Be Taking Now?
Many companies operating in the financial industry, whether or not they are registered entities, already have compliance programs that include policies and procedures addressing their employees’ use of messaging apps for work.
However, the thorny issues always seem to be whether and how to make sure employees are following the policies and guidelines, and what to do if there are violations.
Organizations need to be taking an aggressive independent approach to determine whether they have the correct policies and procedures in place and whether their personnel is compliant.
A comprehensive risk assessment can evaluate the end-to-end processes, controls, and technology that are currently in place.
Organizations need to seek answers about employees’ use of approved and unapproved electronic communications; the geographic location of employees; how business counterparties communicate; and what employees are covered by the regulations.
Each circumstance requires a different approach to compliance that may necessitate additional HR policies, privacy considerations, and specialized legal advice.
A risk assessment should also include whether a firm has an effective monitoring system.
Key focus areas for better monitoring may include implementing controls for previously unapproved channels; developing appropriate systems and methodologies to retain and surveil communications for in-scope employees; deploying technology that allows employees to effectively perform their business-as-usual functions on channels with capture capabilities; establishing training, employee attestations, and other methods to enhance employee awareness of their obligations; and developing frameworks and guidelines to effectively deter employees from violating policies.
Findings and observations identified during an assessment can be supplemented with a look-back review to perform remediation of identified gaps, such as onboarding unapproved channels currently in use or capturing previous communications on unapproved channels into retention systems.
Finally, firms often need strategic consultation regarding what to do when they discover that employees are violating existing policies. The next steps often include strategizing how best to capture communications from unapproved channels into the firm’s retention systems. Other considerations include how to discipline employees. Some firms may be comfortable imposing fines or taking other disciplinary actions against employees for non-compliance, and some may not. Holding managers accountable for the actions of their employees is usually a crucial component of instilling a top-down culture of compliance; however, in order to do so, it is imperative that managers be provided with tools and metrics to give them an appropriate level of insight into potential unapproved channel use by their employees.
While the specific tools and metrics may vary, areas that may warrant a manager’s supervision include employee usage of deployed technology solutions, communications flagged by surveillance protocols, completion and results of employee training and attestations, and confirmed violations of electronic communication policies. Significantly, if a firm discovers employees who are continuing to violate policy, it is often wise to dig deeper to make sure there is no underlying reason for the desire to keep communications secret.
There cannot be a “one-size-fits-all” approach to compliance in this area, firms that take a proactive approach in conducting assessments and remediating any issues will be best served when the regulators come knocking.
Be fair and give your employees all of the tools of today!
Right Communication Tools are a must for messaging inconsistencies!
The introduction of messaging apps as a way of communicating between a team or employees and clients means the team or your company has less control over messaging.
If one of your clients sends out an email with questions about a particular service, the status of a request, or an issue, it is best that there is one platform used to respond to that client.
It can be confusing for clients if they receive an email from one of your employees with different information than they receive from another employee over an instant messaging app.
You also don’t have a record of what the employee or employees who used the messaging app said to the client.
Logging into the Company’s messenger itself is a reminder that they are working and to censure what they say. By only having a personal account available, they are doing the company a favour by quickly responding to a request or inquiry. However, they are introducing potential contradictions in your company’s official policy. This leads to an even greater problem for your business.
Separate Company’s Messaging System Can Prevent Loss of Business
Do employees start to develop relationships with your clients outside of your controlled platform?
They can bond with your clients in a way that could be detrimental to business. You have no idea what they are telling your clients, and there is no record that you can refer to since communication is over the employee’s personal messaging account. Even if employees aren’t saying bad things about your company, they could be telling your customers about new opportunities that they are considering.
If those employees leave your company, they can take your customers with them. After all, the bonds are between the customer and your employee, not between the Organization and the customer. The personal relationships that people tend to form over these apps mean that the customer will feel comfortable leaving you to stay with the person they have been working with. Your employee may be starting a new business, in which case the customer wants to support them. It is just as bad if the employee takes your clients to one of your competitors.
Be Fair and Give Your Employees All of the Tools of Today
Even if your employees don’t steal your customers, it is wrong to expect them to use their personal accounts to conduct your business. Yes, many people prefer to take the easier route. They are using a messaging app while on the go, but it will foster some resentment over time. Customers expect fast turnaround, and they are going to expect customers to respond immediately. The Company does not have its own messaging platform say for instance. Your employees are going to feel pressured to deliver using their own personal accounts to meet client expectations. After all, if they don’t deliver quickly, they are the ones to hear about it, not you.
It is also unfair to expect your employees to conduct this kind of work on their personal time anyway. It is never a good idea to acclimate your employees to the idea of doing work over their own personal accounts either. If they begin to speak informally or in less professional ways with clients, it isn’t entirely their fault because you have failed to give them the necessary tools to work with. Customers often expect instant responses. There are so many different ways to communicate quickly that we rarely have to wait for anything. Your employees are simply meeting those expectations by using whatever means are available to them, even if it means mixing work with their personal life.
Conclusion: Disjointed Communication Hurts Business:
WhatsApp has been heavily criticized for its failure to protect its users’ data privacy in the past. The European Court of Justice ruled that US tech companies, specifically Facebook, do not provide an adequate level of protection of personal data.
If your employees are using WhatsApp for business communication on their personal mobile devices, they are exposing your company to serious data breaches and security risks.
In spite of all the legal, ethical, and personal risks associated with using WhatsApp for workplace communications, employees still do it every day.
When employees are asked to use their own personal accounts, on their devices in their own time, they naturally grow resentful towards company communication in general.
It can also lead to embarrassing blunders when employees accidentally post personal messages to a work chat or share their WhatsApp Live Location with their boss by mistake. In the end, WhatsApp is just plain messy, as it was designed for personal communication.
The best way to avoid internal communication burnout among your frontline employees is to give them a company-issued app or tools that are built for workplace communication.
With the availability of many platforms in the market, frontline employees can easily adjust their notification settings to “Do Not Disturb Mode” when they’re off the clock. This ensures that your company’s internal communication is compliant with labour laws, and it lets your hardworking employees relax and enjoy their free time outside of work. It’s a win/win.
Karma Global while dealing with all such issues and cases, always takes the approach to act trust-worthily and to be compliant with the laws of the land.
Karma Global encourages employees to promptly raise concerns about safety, quality, potential violations of the law, or on its various policies.
Karma Global also works to foster an environment in which employees feel safe seeking guidance, raising concerns, and identifying areas for improvement.
Karma Global also believes and appreciates that speaking up may not always be easy, and the company offers several options for raising concerns confidentially, including through managers, toll-free phone numbers, and web-based portals.
Karma Global has a policy of code of ethics in place and the HR Head is also designated as the Site Compliance and Ethics Officer to provide in-person and online support to employees who are looking for guidance or need to report a concern and can provide additional compliance and ethics resources. Any retaliation against employees who raise a concern is not tolerated and is grounds for discipline, up to and including termination.
Our deep, country-by-country knowledge, expressed through a 250-strong network of local offices, makes light work of the most intricate local and global reporting obligations.
Proprietary blog of Karma Global Tech Management LLC
This blog has been collated and compiled by the internal staff of Karma Global with the knowledge and expertise that they possess, besides adaptation, illustration, derivation, transformation, and collection for its monthly newsletter Issue 10 of April 2023 and in case of specific or general information or compliance updates for that matter, kindly reach out to the Marketing Team – Kush@karmamgmt.com / yashika@karmamgmt.com