Slack’s popular corporate messaging app is getting several new updates to help the wave of companies that are frantically shifting to accommodate employees who now work from home.
The workplace software company announced the new tools Wednesday as part of its Frontiers user conference, which like many other recent tech events, is now online due to the impact of COVID-19.
As Slack’s chief product officer, Tamar Yehoshua, explained in a previous interview with us, Slack’s internal research found that, overall, “people are quite positive” about working from home.
However, he added, “we are finding that people have a greater sense of loneliness and isolation,” underscoring the challenges companies face when dealing with workers who may be struggling with the mental health and pain of the coronavirus pandemic. . . . .
Arguably the biggest update Slack is making to its chat app is giving employees the ability to send direct messages or DMs to workers outside of their organizations. With the new feature, which will debut in early 2021, a Company A worker can send another Company B employee a request to chat in a direct message, as long as their two employers are connected in some way, such as through of an association or relationship with the client.
When the person from Company A sends the DM request to the worker from Company B, a new chat hosted on Company B’s Slack account will appear.
To accompany the new corporate DM feature, Slack also introduces a feature for corporate IT managers so they can pre-approve certain Slack channels to allow people from other organizations to participate in channels deemed appropriate for external employees to chat. . . . . about work projects.
The company also plans to introduce its Verified Organization feature in 2021, which will let people know by check mark that they are communicating with people from other companies that their management deems appropriate.
Slack also introduces new features to make it easier for companies to better integrate their various workplace tools within Slack. It’s part of a broader Slack initiative to make your app work better with other business apps.
Although not part of the company’s new updates, Yehoshua also said that Slack is trying to streamline the process of onboarding new employees to Slack, so companies can more easily update their workers with the program as they change. Loose. job. House. Environments.
Additionally, Slack said it is spawning new ideas to make its chat app more engaging to users, though such ideas won’t necessarily debut anytime soon.
Yehoshua said Slack is intrigued by the possibility that users can send short videos or audio clips to each other as a way to more quickly discuss or brainstorm without having to commit to a formal video call. The goal is to reduce the amount of online video calls that people may have to make each day, now that they work from home.
