Informal mobile communication has also found its way onto construction sites. A large percentage of construction companies and trade businesses communicate informally via chat. Whether among colleagues or in exchange with the office: mobile communication has become a matter of course for the rapid exchange of information.
Messenger services are extremely popular and are the most common means of communication today. Hardly anyone does not have a messenger app installed on their smartphone. With 2 billion active monthly users worldwide, WhatsApp is the most used messenger. No wonder, because it makes communication so easy. WhatsApp became known primarily through private use. However, many business users now also use the messenger. According to a publication by market analyst BauInfoConsult 72% of 367 construction professionals surveyed use WhatsApp for brief business exchanges with colleagues and employees.
WhatsApp on the construction site – simple, but also suitable?
However, experts make different statements about the use of WhatsApp in a business context in terms of security and data protection compliance, ranging from “harmless” to “questionable” to “inadmissible”. So if you are not sure whether the data is transmitted end-to-end in encrypted form or whether there is an order data processing contract between the provider and the company carrying out the processing, you should stay away from business chats with WhatsApp.
Another disadvantage of communicating via WhatsApp in a business environment is the lack of documentation and unsystematic archiving of messages. Although they are stored for a certain period of time, a targeted search in old chat histories is very time-consuming. However, documentation is often only accessed once the actual process has already taken place some time ago. And especially for a construction site, it is also unfavorable that the chats are person-related. This means that if you are looking for a conversation about a specific construction site, you have to search through the chats with individual people in the hope that the conversation you are looking for will be found in the first chat history. Alternatively, chat groups could be created manually for the individual construction sites, but who does that? Is this then the job of a foreman, an office worker or the boss himself?
But you can’t really do without messengers these days. The uncomplicated use and this type of fast communication has already established itself too much to take a step back to phone calls or emails. This form of communication is particularly important on the construction site. Messenger apps are a great help for the foreman, for example. Because even if the employees are on the same construction site, they don’t always have the opportunity to communicate in person. Depending on the size of the construction site, there may be several hundred meters between individual employees or crews. A chat is the ideal way to find out quickly whether a tool is still being used by an employee, whether a job has already been completed or to quickly locate a contact person.
“We want to provide our loyal customers with a secure and modern tool for their communication,” explains David Künnen, Senior Product Manager at 123onsite.
Secure and legally compliant chatting – as easy as 1, 2, 3
In response to many customer requests, 123onsite is now offering users of its cloud solutions for smartphones and desktops the opportunity to chat with each other on site and in compliance with the GDPR as an alternative to WhatsApp, Telegram and the like – at no additional cost.
When a construction site is created in 123onsite, the system automatically creates a chat group for the construction site. Every employee assigned to this construction site automatically has access to it. The construction site-related chat histories are stored on a server. This means that the chat history is not only stored on the mobile devices, but also in real time in the office version of 123onsite and can be called up in the office. The server is located in a German data center and is therefore subject to German law with its high standards of data and consumer protection.
With 123onsite, companies can finally take advantage of all the benefits of digital communication, without legal uncertainty and while maintaining consistent site-related documentation.
Photo credits: 123onsite/Timo Lutz advertising photography; 123onsite
