It's probably a good idea to tell you who I am before going into my experience so far working for Work Networks and using Workplace from Meta for my day to day work...
So, Hi! I'm Dylan, a Consultant here at Work Networks, I joined in October 2021 having previously led the communications strategy for an award winning major Government contact centre whilst working at Capita. I'll tell you all about that and everything else in our upcoming 'Get to know' series.
Let's start from the top shall we? Like millions of people across the globe I have a Facebook account, and use it almost on a daily basis to connect with friends, family and the general public and even receive news and sports updates. Whether I use Messenger, posting on my friends timelines or letting everyone know 'what I'm thinking', Facebook has changed the way I connect with people for well over a decade now. I'm not alone in my usage of the site either, the fourth quarter of 2021 saw Facebook have 2.91 billion active monthly users and is still to this day the most used social networking platform across the globe!
So some may say, including me, that it was a stroke of genius to take everything we love about Facebook and adapt it for businesses across the globe. Drumroll anyone? Introducing (for those yet to be acquainted), Workplace from Meta - the enterprise communication and collaboration tool for desktop and mobile that helps organisations reach the unreachable and connect everyone from HR to the Frontline.
Since starting my role with Work Networks, a Workplace reseller and implementation partner, I have come to realise that the sheer familiarity alone of the Workplace from Meta platform makes it one of the easiest, if not the easiest, to roll out across entire organisations. Within hours, you clearly see the benefits of Workplace – and they continue to come. The most noticeable difference in favour of Workplace was the increased speed and accuracy of communication. Working for large corporations and government departments for the past five years, I see this as a serious problem.
How can Workplace combat all of this? Well it's very similar in look and feel to commercial Facebook, but with zero advertising and content only produced by you and your staff - so of course the occasional meme (just like the one below) will pop up to add to your company culture. The decision making process can appropriately be streamlined, through the capability of instant feedback for leaders through comments on posts or even votes by poll.
Workplace is predominantly focused around the use of Groups. The benefits include each project or team having its own area for communication, posting content, and ultimately making decisions. With Work Networks, I'm part of six core groups that we use for internal collaboration at Work Networks and several multiple Multi-Company Groups for partner and client communication. Among the work by the team, we share files, weekly actions, trials and tribulations, as well as general communications that would otherwise take days to convey. Quite impressive really.
With the Knowledge Library and documents you can see previously in any group, I learned how easy it is to onboard and bring up to speed new team members from my own quick onboarding experience. It is much more effective than the usual full-day meetings that come with a new position or company, allowing anyone new to quickly become familiar with issues, company dealings and anything of note.
Within several minutes, decisions that I would have needed two or three meetings to resolve in other organisations have been resolved. I would recommend this to all remote employees!
It is vital that I emphasise the amazing success of Work Chat, a mirror of Facebook Messenger, adapted for business. My previous roles have relied heavily on email and Teams as the main channel of conversation (which I found a clunky communication and collaboration model), it's refreshing to see something as simple as Messenger in the form of Workplace Chat. It's like cheese and crackers... it just makes sense.
Even now, since October, Workplace updates keep coming - and I don't mean those time-consuming updates that change nothing, but real, visible and useful updates. It would be a great understatement to say I'm excited about continuing my journey with Work Networks and using Workplace - It's more like that feeling you got as a kid walking into Toys R Us, you know the feeling.
If you'd like to experience Workplace yourself for your organisation, then connect with us.