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It’s 8 pm. She has long since closed the working day and is talking to some friends about WhatsApp. Suddenly one notification floating makes you see that you have received a new message in that same application. Is his boss, a co-worker, a client, a supplier. should i read the message to see if it’s urgent? Or, even if it isn’t, to answer? It is very possible that they have seen that you are online, but even if you have WhatsApp configured so that this information is not visible, even if you are very clear that you will not answer until the next day, the work has already crept into your Leisure time.
Actually, this can also happen with a work email or with the Slack messaging application if you have not disabled notifications, but the case of WhatsApp goes further. “The problem with this tool is that we have it on our mobile and we don’t know if the warning that sounds is for the conversation with a friend or for something at work, and, when you realize it, you’ve already seen that they ask you for something at work , and that throws you off balance”, explains Eva Rimbau, professor of Human Resources and Organization at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and specialist in telecommuting. However, precisely because of the omnipresence of WhatsApp on almost all mobiles, the application has become a tool that is commonly used in work environments as well.
“WhatsApp is a hybrid technology tool, it goes between the telephone, which is usual for punctual and synchronous communication, and mail, an asynchronous tool that allows sending files, etc. This application allows both possibilities: both the sending of files and the immediate communication”, explains Juana Rubio-Romero, doctor of Philosophy, professor at the University of Nebrija and specialist in social research and communication, who has done a lot of research on the use of WhatsApp. In addition, she points to another factor that explains why the application is also used for work: “It is a widely used tool that is in our day to day.” In other words, almost everyone has it installed on their mobile device.
Much has been written about how the application was conquering our smartphones. Launched in 2009, in Spain it quickly became the first that users downloaded as soon as they switched to a smartphone. Currently, according to a report by We Are Social and Hootsuite, 91% of Spaniards use the application, which has been owned by Facebook since 2014.
It is more difficult to know how many of those users use this service – the classic version, not WhatsApp Business – also for work issues, but there are some clues. A 2019 study by internal communication tool Speakap said that 53% of frontline workers working in stores or hospitals used WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger for work-related issues. In January 2020, according to the Guild instant messaging app, 41% of Britons used WhatsApp for work. All this, before the pandemic.
The presence in the application of messages related to work is, therefore, common, despite the fact that in its own terms and conditions any non-personal use of WhatsApp is prohibited. But we must also take into account what the law says in this regard: “You cannot receive work messages outside working hours, we have the right to digital disconnection,” summarizes Purificación Morgado, professor of Labor Law and Social Security at the University of Salamanca. In that case, moreover, she doesn’t care if the phone is personal or if it’s the company’s. For messages during working hours, the worker “has to give consent to the company so that it can send him WhatsApps,” explains the expert. In addition, there must be a commitment on the part of the company “regarding the confidentiality and security of that data, because the telephone number, the profile photo, etc., are considered personal data of the worker,” says Morgado.
On the other hand, the employee could refuse to give that consent, as it is “a digital and telematic device of personal possession of the worker”, explains Francisco Trujillo Pons, Doctor of Law and professor at the University of Valencia. The expert adds that the employee could even refuse to use WhatsApp on the company phone “because he knows that this can increase his workload and, in the end, suffer from what is known by the Organic Law on Protection of Personal Data and guarantee of digital rights as computer fatigue”. However, he concedes that this denial with a company phone can harm the worker if the company uses WhatsApp “as a means of corporate communication.”
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