3 Pros & Cons Of Workplace By Facebook As Compared To Slack
Strong internal communication has been a hallmark of successful businesses throughout history. For the last several years, the software known as Slack has continued to gain traction where workforce communication is concerned. Slack offers a chat-based messaging platform, one that allows employees to cut down the amount of time spent in meetings and writing emails, while increasing the ease with which they communicate and collaborate.
Until recently, Slack reigned supreme in the world of office messaging, amassing as many as 4 million daily active users. Yet Facebook has recently launched a rival application—Workforce—which may threaten Slack’s continued growth.
Choosing the right platform for your company will require a thorough software comparison, as well as an understanding of the benefits presented by each. This article will discuss three pros and cons of Workplace by Facebook as compared to Slack.
Pro: Workplace brings Facebook familiarity to the table.
Familiarity represents perhaps the single greatest advantage of Workplace. That’s because Workplace utilizes an appearance and functionality very similar to that of Facebook itself, thus ensuring that the learning curve for your employees will be virtually nonexistent. Slack, on the other hand, lacks the advantage of user familiarity, which means that it will take much longer for employees to grow comfortable using it.
Workplace’s familiarity goes a lot deeper than simply its layout. It is also stocked with tried and true Facebook features like Reactions, Groups, chat, trending posts, and live video. These features are modified in subtle ways to increase their Workplace functionality. For instance, the chat feature offers a function for group calls. Likewise, Workplace allows you to custom create multi-company groups, meaning you can easily collaborate and communicate with clients and/or strategic partners.
The benefits of having Facebook as its parent company don’t stop at familiarity, however. Workplace is also able to capitalize on Facebook’s breakthroughs where security and data control are concerned. Facebook’s experts perform regular security evaluations—from penetration tests to source code reviews, to third-party audits—that are second to none in the tech industry. That ensures that both your workers and your company can enjoy a full measure of privacy and control at all times.
Con: Workplace lacks Slack’s integration tools.
One of Slack’s greatest strengths is the effort it has made to define itself in terms of cross-platform software integration. In other words, Slack doesn’t simply offer a way to increase communication between coworkers—it also acts to boost communication between different apps. It can easily be set up to work in tandem with the array of software tools your company has come to rely on.
For instance, Slack currently boasts integration compatibility with over 746 different apps, including:
- Google Hangouts
- Git Hub
- MailChimp
- Trello
- Asana
- Blossom
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- Desk
- Groove
Yet the beauty of Slack’s integration feature has to do with more than just its broad scope. It also acts as a communications hub for all of those divergent apps. This saves employees the tedious and time-consuming need to check each app individually. Instead, Slack gathers relevant updates and presents them all in one place. Better yet, it allows users to interact with those apps by means of slash commands.
Workplace still has a long way to go in matching Slack’s cross-platform versatility. Though Facebook has recently announced its intention to bring integration features to Workplace, the feature is still in development. So for the time being, Slack will continue to win the software comparison where integration is concerned.
Pro: Workplace wins on price point.
While software comparisons are important for establishing the relative merits of Workplace and Slack, it would be foolish to overlook your bottom line. Here, Workplace wins another decided victory. Whereas the standard version of Slack costs approximately $6.67, Workplace’s pricing starts at a mere $3.00 per month.
Workplace also offers a sliding scale, with significant pricing discounts for companies with more than 10,000 employees. This competitive pricing will likely win a significant number of customers—especially those who are willing to wait patiently for Workplace to unroll its integration features.
