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There is a recent trend in our organization where each Program manager has created a whats app group by adding all the team mates who report to him. This is now being used to send quick updates/reminders like completing time-sheets or asking quick question likes 'Is someone on leave?', 'Is printer not working?' etc. but the group has been getting overused now with silly jokes/comments, everyone greeting 'Happy birthday' and what not. Some juniors are over-commenting on almost any topic!

I don't like to use whatsapp and although it has mute option but then I keep missing some important updates as somehow our manager has started to put more updates on the group.

So my question, Is it right practice to expect employees to read whats app group message and respond? How do I politely refuse to get in to this group as I don't use whatsapp + I am bit annoyed to get so many irrelevant messages in that group.

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  • Sorry, can't comment due to low rep (Could a kind mod convert this to comment, please?) and got a question or two: - Are these your work or personal numbers that got added to the WhatsApp group? - Did you try bringing this up with your group of peers/manager you report to?For example: that the solution to improve efficiency of communication employed right now is deterring into something that hinders and impacts you? Could need just a bit of rules/usage guidelines to be applied.
    – Cthulhubutt
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 11:09
  • group has personal numbers, i tried quitting when the group was small but then post internal reorganization new group was formed again !
    – RRR_J
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 11:13
  • Ok, so using personal numbers for work stuff is strictly Danger Zone. Been there, done that, had little peace of mind or angry coworkers (because I blocked them for calling waaaay too much about irrelevant stuff). As answer above suggested, probably using Slack/Skype for Business would be better solution. Keeps this isolated within work and you can have a mobile app (dont know anything about Slack so can't comment!) as well, which you could of course shut down as soon as you're out of work.
    – Cthulhubutt
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 11:17
  • Is the whatsapp group on your private phone?
    – clem steredenn
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 11:52
  • VTC Unclear. You're asking how to avoid the group but you also say you can't avoid it because you'd miss updates. I'd ask you to clarify your goal but really, your first step should have been to go to this with your manager and ask for his input.
    – Lilienthal ♦
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 13:02

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My current company uses Slack and the one I worked for before used Skype for these kinds of quick easy IM style questions/conversations.

Both of them had a group/channel for general chatter and a separate group/channel for more important work related stuff (spinning off new groups/channels as necessary for specific pieces of collaboration).

I don't know how easy this is to implement for WhatsApp, but perhaps you can try suggesting that there are separate places for general chatting/communication and one for more important work related conversations. That way you would be able to mute the general chatter but still get all the important parts.

You might want to suggest using something like Slack, as it's better for this sort of work collaboration in general than WhatsApp (in my opinion)

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  • Another vote for Slack. Some people at work have my personal cell number, but it's definitely not common knowledge. I can always be pinged on Slack, and if I'm away from my desk, I can tun it on on my cellphone. In my opinion, Whatsapp is pretty much a teenagers way of communicating.
    – PeteCon
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 14:37

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