Colleagues,
I want to draw you attention to the following brief post about texting in the workplace .Texting is a causual form of communication, and I am curious if you use it with your boss or employees? Do you prefer the casual tone? Or do you prefer the more formal communication with something like email?
The article highlights a few mishaps in texting... For example, do you use emojis? Are they appropriate? Do you ever send the text to the wrong person, or inadvertanly end a text with XOXOXO? :-)
We know our younger students may prefer texting over phone calls, but is this a trend in the workplace? If so, how do you address it?
I'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts about texting in the workplace.
Sincerely,
Kathy Tracey
Comments
I text often - it helps to get a jump start on emerging issues. Students also text/call using my Google voice number.
We work in an adult probation department so the great majority of our students are on probation. For over a year we had a program from Code for America that allowed texting from an internet interface. We LOVED it! Our students LOVED it! But that ended last summer. Now we use the website: https://freesmsgateway.info/ to send texts as emails to phones. My teachers like it almost as much as the other one. It is pretty simple. Just enter the phone number to gather the network they are on and it provides you the right way to send an email to a phone.
As for communication with my staff, we often text because there are three offices and of course I'm only at one place at a time. The non-synchronous nature is really valuable so that they can send the text when they know something and I can read and reply when I feel like it. Emojis are not a big thing for me and we typically don't use them a lot in work related texts. But sometimes they are just the right thing. My boss and I do text, but much less. He doesn't like texts when I need a sick day, he prefers to speak to me. I don't mind staff texting for sick leave the evening prior. I know they are professionals and would not just take a day and leave class to be subbed unless they really needed to be out. If it is really last moment, such as 6 am, then they call so I can make a quick arrangement.
I think that use of technology to get a job done is far more important than which one we use.