How Slack Can Be Your Difference-Maker During the COVID-19 Crisis
With Coronavirus, we have all spent plenty of time working from home. It is crucial to find the vital tools necessary to work efficiently while stuck in our living rooms.
First, let’s be honest, remote work is awful for many.
Productivity and efficiency often become suffer. Adjusting to this ‘new normal’may still seem impossible after spending years interacting in an office setting where everything is more personal.
By applying the right technological solution to your remote working problems, overcoming those hurdles becomes far easier to achieve.
For instance, Slack has become a go-to workplace tool for many organizations and firms throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why Do We Endorse Slack?
Since 2015, at GlobalMacIT, we have sent 585,225 messages on this workplace communication platform. Slack is a tool our team is incredibly familiar and comfortable with; we are all proficient in its use.
This tool helps you improve collaboration in the workplace. Beyond that, Slack is conducive to heightened efficiency because it possesses features that allow you to get more done in less time.
In short, this tool is a chatroom for your entire workplace, meant to replace email as the primary form of communication. Slack’s workplaces allow you to organize discussions through channels such as group chats and private conversations, etc. Through Slack, sharing information is more seamless and streamlined.
Why Are We Teaching You About Slack?
Recently, we hosted a webinar discussing the beauty of this fantastic app in our ‘Vital Few’ Series. More specifically, we broke down 13 crucial tips when using Slack.
There is a distinct difference between paying for an app and using it to its fullest capabilities. Having a grasp on how to use these tools will help you and your team harness the various timesaving benefits.
Before delving into the tips, let’s discuss why your firm should use Slack:
Reason #1: Emails Are Overwhelming
Did you know the average business email user receives 78 emails a day? I have seen plenty of lawyer inboxes to confirm this to be true for law professionals and some WISH they only received 78 in a day!
It is quite clear why lawyers like yourself can get overwhelmed by your inbox.
Reason #2: Texting and Messages Let You Down
There is nothing worse than sending an accidental text to your colleague – that was meant for your spouse – where embarrassing, gushy pet names were used.
Furthermore, I cannot think of anyone who is yet to fall victim to an auto-correct mistake where a message takes a whole new meaning. Frequently, this situation is beyond infuriating, because you are likely having your flow disrupted.
The worst part is, there is no undo for email and texts. Once sent, it is out there. You might be able to explain yourself, but the damage is done.
Reason #3: Using Messages on Your Mac is Filled with Headaches
Recently, Apple banned one of our clients’ employees from using Messages altogether, as they were flagged as suspicious for too many messages. They had put off moving to Slack, thinking they could get away with Messages since it was free. As everyone started working remotely, message quantity increased and they were banned.
Messages is not an enterprise feature and using it in this way can lead to this occurring.
In addition to this, requiring all of your team members to create their own work-Apple ID can be unwieldy and cumbersome.
Reason #4: Messages Lack a Universal History
Nobody has a 100% pristine memory. It is undoubtedly valuable to have a recorded history of prior work-related communications for that reason.
With Apple’s Messages, a universal history does not exist. So, instead of being able to seamlessly cross-reference a prior conversation with your boss about a given brief, you now must call or email them to clarify.
The above scenario is an unnecessary waste of time when a universal history could tell you what you need to know in an instant.
Or you can spend eons trying to sift through independent accounts and logs. At that point, you may as well just have a video chat to clarify any missing information.
Reason #5: Apple Messages Have Poor Group Functionality
Part of the issue with using Messages is being subjected to the “ding” notification. Sure, you can turn it off, but you do not have much control over what goes on in the conversation. Now imagine trying to manage multiple group chats – it would be all too easy to accidentally place a response in the wrong channel. Group texts do not have individual names, but instead a long list of everyoneint he group.
Reason #6: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Mac’s Messages provides an initial notification. But what if you are in the middle of something and cannot respond immediately?
On Messages, you are unable to mark it as unread or flag it to remind yourself to reply when you have a free moment. Given the distractions you deal with every workday, you need a visual cue to ensure you do not let critical communications go unnoticed.
Hopefully, this Blog Picked up Some of the Slack
This blog is directed towards small law firms and lawyers using the platform who are trying to get more out of Slack and improve it’s adoption rate and overall value. The article above was more of the why Slack shoud be used.
The logical next step is learn some tips and tricks that will help you get way more out of the software. We created this guide for you: the 13 Slack Tips I have learned over 585,225 messages.
