Communication in the workplace has long been a problem since the development of the 9-5 workday. Your choice to spread a companywide message was a printed memo that more often than not, turned into some kind of paper airplane or a mass e-mail. Both these choices did the job, but created problems. E-mail inboxes began to fill up and team members began missing relevant messages drowned in the sea of CC’d e-mails unrelated to their job.

Enter the Millennials

As millennials began entering the workplace, the tired communication channels still hadn’t improved. During a time where more social media channels began popping up, the creators of Slack sought to replace workplace communication on an easy-to-use platform.

Slack is a company-wide chat room meant to keep all company business discussions in one place. Team members can create group chats with a personalized URL to invite the necessary members and also private message to each other. Another upside of Slack is that it integrates with other third-party services such as Google Drive, Github, Dropbox, and many others.

Why Slack Works

Slack entered the industry without many competitors as there was nothing of its kind from other major companies like Microsoft or Apple. Being one of a kind was one perk, but Slack was created with the goal to change workplace communication altogether.

Designed with users’ needs in mind, Slack offers unique benefits because:

• It’s fun to use.

Most messaging apps had interfaces that used standard blues and greys. To stand out from the crowd, Slack created its interface to be bright, colorful, and active. Colorful messages pop up rather than just appear as a notification. Slack’s logo explodes with colorful confetti. And best of all, there’s a fun, cheeky Slackbot that creates fun loading messages rather than the standard “please wait.”

• It’s easy to get help from an actual person.

Slack’s popularity grew not just from its usability, but also because of the company’s small size. Instead of having to call a helpline and press several numbers before reaching a human, Slack members are available for live help. Every Slack member must work a shift in support to empathize with users’ pain and to ultimately continue to improve the platform.

• It’s user-centred.

Altogether, businesses use Slack because it works for the user first over the entire company. Group chats are easy to access and organize and private messaging is just that – private. The higher tiers of Slack packages do offer admin access to team chats, but the most used tiers do not, which gives users a better sense of privacy knowing they are not always monitored.

Overall, Slack for business succeeds because of its unique, creative, and functional interface. All of the benefits of Slack haven’t been mentioned, but benefits appear to each user as they get a hang of the platform. It eliminates irrelevant messaging, searching for specific people each time a message needs to be sent, and keeps all communication on one platform. Use Slack to change your team’s communication for the better.