Welcome to the Workology Podcast, a podcast for the disruptive workplace leader, join host Jessica Miller-Merrell, founding father of Workology.com as she sits down and gets to the underside of trends, tools and case studies for the business leader, HR and recruiting skilled who’s uninterested in the established order. Now here’s Jessica with this episode of Workology.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Welcome to the Workology Podcast, sponsored by Ace the HR Exam and UpSkill HR microcourses. These are a few of the resources and courses that we provide for certification prep, recertification, and continuous learning for HR and folks leaders. You possibly can learn more about these courses over at workology.com.
In today’s episode, we’re talking about one of the missed drivers of worker engagement, retention, and workplace culture. It’s communication. And not only sending more emails or adding one other Slack channel, but creating clear, intentional communication that helps employees feel informed, connected, and valued—whether your workforce is distant, frontline, hybrid, or spread across multiple locations.
The way in which leaders communicate can directly impact trust, productivity, and even turnover. We’re going to explore effective worker communication and what that appears like in practice, common mistakes that organizations make, and the way HR leaders can construct stronger connections with employees at every level. Because when communication breaks down, culture often follows. And if you’re coping with multi-location and high-volume hiring situations like restaurant, retail, and hospitality, it’s so necessary. When communication works, employees are going to feel more engaged, and it helps them lead with confidence. Their managers do too, and organizations are higher equipped to navigate all of the changes. Within the hourly market, that is occurring on a regular basis, and it’s so critical. So let’s get into it.
Before I introduce our guest for today’s episode, I do need to hear from you. Please comment “podcast” on our pinned Instagram post over @Workologyblog. You possibly can slide into my DMs, leave comments, or make suggestions for future guests. I need to listen to from you.
Guy Weiss is the CEO and founding father of ZenZap, a secure communication platform designed specifically for frontline and mobile-first workforces. With a background in cybersecurity and entrepreneurship, Guy has built his profession around solving complex technology and security challenges for businesses. After successfully exiting his previous company, he recognized a growing problem impacting organizations across industries: employees counting on personal messaging apps for communication. It’s happening rather a lot, and it creates significant risks around compliance, privacy, and operational efficiency.
Driven by the idea that frontline employees deserve communication tools built for the realities of the hourly and shift-based workforce, Guy launched ZenZap to assist organizations create safer, more organized, and simpler communication practices. Under his leadership, ZenZap has focused on combining enterprise-level security with simplicity and ease of use, helping corporations streamline collaboration while protecting worker boundaries and sensitive company information. Guy is keen about improving workplace communication, reducing burnout, and helping leaders create healthier, more connected work environments for his or her teams.
Guy, welcome to the Workology Podcast.
Guy Weiss: Oh my god, you probably did it higher than me.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: That’s why it’s my day job.
Guy Weiss: Wow, that’s a superb one.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Well, I’m great. Welcome, welcome to the podcast. I’m really excited to have you ever on. You’ve gotten said that corporations are still counting on personal messaging apps for workforce communication—things like WhatsApp and others. Are you able to discuss with us in regards to the risks that organizations are perhaps overlooking after they use tools like WhatsApp or standard text messages for worker communication?
The Hidden Risks of Using Personal Messaging Apps at Work
Guy Weiss: Blissful to be here. Yeah, of course. So I believe that the issue, if you have a look at a workplace—and you may take into consideration hotels, restaurants, manufacturing businesses, law firms, hospitals, home care, any kind of business where you will have plenty of employees, plenty of day-to-day operations, plenty of communication—the necessity to have fast communication is just there. The dearth of tools built for these scenarios brings people to make use of the available tools they’ve. You already know, in case you don’t have the suitable hammer, you’ll use a straightforward hammer. So people use the default. It’s iMessage, it’s WhatsApp, it’s even Snapchat in Gen Z businesses. It’s all varieties of personal messaging apps as an attribute to run operations.
So when you desire to help people understand and type of give it some thought from a risk and business perspective, you must give it some thought this manner: imagine a world where at any workplace you’d go to, you’d use your personal Gmail for any work communication. Does it make sense that you just leave with the information? If you go to work for a corporation, they may shut down your email once you permit for security purposes, information purposes, and to ensure you will have a separated inbox to your work and to your private life so that you don’t get mixed up. Cyber security, productivity, you may react fast on this specific email. This thing doesn’t exist on the subject of fast messaging.
Why WhatsApp and Text Messaging Create Business Vulnerabilities
So the risks are worker burnout—huge, huge risks for his or her businesses. Sexual harassment from having personal details shared, personal numbers shared inappropriately because “we’re in the identical group chat.” We get tons of complaints. Persons are saying, “Hey, we wish to change to skilled tools because we now have a bunch chat and we got complaints for sexual harassment from a few of the girls being hit on by a man taking her phone number from the group chat since it’s there.” So privacy is a big, huge issue.
Onboarding and offboarding employees, just managing who’s in and who’s out. Take into consideration corporations with turnover—huge turnovers, 30 to 40% a 12 months. It’s removing tons of of individuals from group chats and adding them to those group chats. And if you go to multi-location, multi-departments, it comes—it’s a nightmare. It’s something you may’t handle.
Information and secrets getting lost. Take into consideration in case you run a restaurant and all your recipes are in there in group chats, after which someone leaves—one among the chefs or one among the cooks. He mainly has every part he must run a competitor, or suppliers and pricing. So we get—it depends upon the vertical—so many data points which can be business secrets that you just just give away, they usually’re available to your employees even after they leave the corporate.
Updates—running a straightforward update from top management right down to the underside just can’t be done. You’ve gotten no structured place to run a message from the CEO to the last worker. Costing mistakes, compliance, 24/7 notifications if you’re off shift, if you’re at home, after which the group chat continues to work. You usually, consistently during dinner, open the WhatsApp or text messaging app and also you see messages that, again, are work. So all of those things make it so inappropriate to make use of those personal tools for the overload of labor messaging that it just doesn’t make sense. In order that’s just at a high level.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: What was the moment or experience that made you realize frontline hourly employees needed a very different communication solution apart from WhatsApp, Slack, or Microsoft Teams?
Guy Weiss: Yeah, it’s an amazing query. So I believe the query is a bit of bit greater, so let me rephrase perhaps the query, then answer broadly. So it’s price mentioning ZenZap is backed by top VCs from the US—Bessemer, Lightspeed. And the query is, why have they decided years ago to back ZenZap? And I believe the reply is, if you have a look at the market, and that’s the chance we’re , you will have Slack. You mentioned Slack; it’s a vertical tool eventually. It’s utilized by developers and tech corporations—40 to 50 million users. And that’s very small in comparison with every other industry. The fast-food industry within the US is 25 to twenty-eight million people, for us users, potential users. Hospitality is just huge. So that you’re talking about billions of users the world over that don’t have an identical tool. And the query is, why? Right? Why don’t they use those available tools?
And the reply is straightforward. They’re not easy enough. They’re not mobile-first. They were never intended to be utilized by those kinds of users where the bottom common denominator is super low. It’s nearly being a basic text app that may be expanded to plenty of use cases, and the pricing point, which is super necessary. Not every organization is as wealthy as tech organizations. So those two answers very broadly brought us to the thought where you needed to have something like WhatsApp for work or iMessage for Teams, built from the bottom up with the safety metrics and all of the compliance and garbage you would want, layering also productivity, integrations, connectivity, but enabling it for other markets.
And inside those markets, there’s an enormous opportunity and large need for twenty-four/7 businesses, right? They’re at all times texting, they’re at all times on the go. It’s at all times mobile-first. It’s a wide range of individuals with different backgrounds, different tech skills. They at all times need to get things done quickly and feel connected. Those 24/7 businesses are super intense with the amount of communication. And when it happens on group chats, it creates chaos, and scaling chaos is a difficulty. So frontline employees—mobile-first, as we wish to call them, or deskless employees—are only a sweet spot as a audience to serve them and serve them super well. And that’s what we do. In order that’s how we got here across it.
It began by having customers going onto the platform, and also you see adoption. You see, I don’t know, in lower than a number of months, you see the ten largest food chains in America onboarding to ZenZap—McDonald’s, Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts, Taco Bell, you name it, we now have them. Goal, Walmart, whatever it’s. So you’d see shift businesses, hotel chains, hospitals, daycares, home care, and suddenly it just is smart. So it clicked. The issue is even stronger when it’s a 24/7 business where you desire to opt in and opt out as an worker.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: In industries, a few of that you just mentioned like retail, healthcare, and food service, burnout and turnover are already high. How do you are feeling like poor communication contributes to worker stress and disengagement in those industries?
Guy Weiss: I can provide you with just a few numbers. We had a customer—I take heed to plenty of demos with customers, I find it irresistible, it’s my passion being near customers—and one among them said that they run a restaurant with 200 employees, five locations. They claimed in the course of the conversation—it’s like an exploration conversation—they claimed that employees left the corporate and told them the explanation for resigning was the constant flow of notifications flooding their—then it was Snapchat. That’s what they used for the group chats with the Gen Z. It’s crazy. Because they couldn’t tell which notification was work-related and which was personal. The overflooded, over-capacity overload of notifications for someone who works for you thrice per week or 4 times per week, after which has one other half of the week off, was an excessive amount of. And so they said, “Just f*ck it.”
This was a direct cost of a number of tens of 1000’s of dollars to interchange those employees with recent employees, only for the sake of being burnt out from this constant flow of messages 24/7. Take into consideration a restaurant that opens at 11 within the morning and closes up at 12 at night—it’s crazy. After which management and staff… so there’s an actual cost. There’s like a dollar cost you may placed on it. And what’s the answer? You possibly can just move the team to a tool built for that; it could cost you a fraction of the value, and then you definately retain employees for a for much longer time. In order that’s an enormous cost.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Absolutely. Well, one other area that I wanted to speak about is legal and compliance issues. And I do know that you just’ve worked with corporations who’ve faced legal and compliance issues due to work-related texting on personal devices. Are you able to perhaps share some examples of what can go mistaken when businesses don’t have clear communication boundaries in those areas?
The Hidden Compliance Risks of Work Messaging on Personal Devices
Guy Weiss: Yes, yes. I won’t mention names, but I can provide you with examples. So the primary example, and we talked about it a number of minutes ago, is sexual harassment. Something that will not be publicly known or spoken outspokenly, but HR deals with harassment on account of the sharing of personal data and personal information, and that happens on a regular basis. You can be shocked if I told you that each business goes through these situations—it’s a multitude—once a month. It depends upon the variety of employees, but when it’s tens of employees or tons of of employees, once a month someone will come and say, “Hey, he’s texting me after working hours,” etc., etc. Why should he be texting me on my personal phone? “I’m afraid, I’m this, I’m that.” And that’s all because you’d use WhatsApp for communicating along with your team. In order that’s one side of things.
The opposite side is an ex-employee leaving the corporate and having all of the historical data on his phone, right? So every part everyone said to him. And then you definately would get complaints and even legal actions for things that got written within the chat up to now, and now it may very well be used against the corporate in a unique context. So take into consideration words or certain words that may very well be just thrown away within the air in a bunch chat, which could be offensive when reading it in a unique context. This data shouldn’t be stored on the workers’ phones after they leave the corporate. An ex-employee shouldn’t have access to historical data of real-life operations. And the very fact is, using personal data, you’ll want to subpoena—you’ll want to actually subpoena devices to analyze those things. So this happens rather a lot.
We’ve got a really large nail salon with a number of hundred locations that began using ZenZap because they got sued by ex-employees a number of times, tens of 1000’s of dollars each. And that’s only a shame. So you will have lots of those examples going through, and these are HR, proper HR issues that may very well be solved in a second by offboarding. These are only the tip of the iceberg.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: And I feel like having worked in retail and hospitality myself as an HR skilled, every HR person who has been in those spaces straight away is shaking their head like they’ll consider six or seven situations off the highest of their head in recent—probably lower than 24 months—from things that you just’re describing.
Guy Weiss: Yeah, of course. You already know, just give it some thought as an HR person onboarding and welcoming recent employees, or offboarding them. When talking about larger corporations—greater than 150 employees, let’s even speak about 1000’s of employees—not being connected to any HR platform… I don’t know what you employ, Workday, Bob, whatever it’s, or a payroll system as a directory of who’s your worker and who’s an ex-employee… that’s almost stupidity. You should utilize those technologies to empower day-to-day communications and sync those things together.
So it’s not only compliance of communication; it’s also sending them a “Have an amazing holiday” from the CEO from an HR perspective to empower them, and even connecting the payroll to a message saying, “Hey, your paycheck has arrived. Great.” We didn’t even talk in regards to the mess and the chaos around shift management and the way that happens over group chats. So…
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Well, yeah, discuss with us about shift changes and schedule changes because I even have an adolescent and she or he has her first summer job as a lifeguard in a close-by city. And there are—I mean, there are probably 300 lifeguards, right, which can be seasonal there. So you may imagine the messages which can be flying. So discuss with us about shift changes and type of the complexities, and what ZenZap does to make that simpler.
Guy Weiss: Yeah, of course. So take into consideration 300 people messaging all day long in a f*cking group chat about who can come tomorrow and who can switch with me because “I would like to go to this party,” yes and no. For each message, it’s 300 disturbing messages—perhaps 299 beside the one who’s sending—for other people after they’re doing something. It doesn’t make sense. And that’s only for one message. You’re talking about 1000’s of messages for each shift being modified or switched.
That may very well be solved super easily once you will have a purposely built group chat for that, or an agent that’s connected to the calendars and knows the shifts, and you may speak with him like a human shift manager. You possibly can tell him, “Hey, I can’t come tomorrow.” He can look and see and say, “Hey, you realize what? I’ll DM Jessica because I do know her schedule is pretty loose this week. Hey Jessica, are you able to please switch with Guy? He can’t come.” Yeah, boom. Saved 1000’s of notifications. Made it really easy to change shifts. But you may’t do it with out a governed, controlled, connected tool, right? It doesn’t matter in case you use, I don’t know, 7shifts or whatever it’s to run your shifts. In order that’s an enormous pain. And that’s HR. Shift management today is a nightmare.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Absolutely. And I’ll say, like on the pool for my daughter, HR isn’t super involved, it’s the managers for the pool which can be navigating all these shift schedule changes and the communication around it. And people persons are really critical to the success of the summer. And so we wish to ensure that managers have a approach to effectively communicate after which have the opportunity to have their very own downtime and disconnect.
Guy Weiss: You wish to hear a crazy story?
The Surprising Link Between Communication and Manager Burnout
Jessica Miller-Merrell: In fact. What’s the story?
Guy Weiss: We had a manager telling us within the very early days—super early days—that he used to text people on WhatsApp, and sooner or later no person showed as much as the shift. All right? A five-person team, no person showed, he can’t open his business. Think it was a barbecue restaurant in San Diego. By the way in which, an amazing place, one among our guys went to go to. And I used to be shocked. I used to be like, what, did the message not undergo? And he said, “No, no, it did undergo. But it surely was after a vacation or whatever it’s, and folks didn’t read the message because all of them claimed that they saw it after the shift.” And I couldn’t blame them since it’s a non-public tool. Well, he missed the message under tons of of messages he gets each day from his mother, his father, his friends, groups, whatever it’s. So who can I blame?
When you will have a purposely built tool used just for work, the excuse of “I didn’t see it” is far harder to make use of. In order that’s a loss for a business—sooner or later out of, I don’t know, 25 days a month he works. That’s only a 5% loss on his volume on this month. For what? One message that didn’t get read. So managers are suffering essentially the most. And by the way in which, they’ve the most important burnout. Managing shifts is the most important burnout for managers—the most important. These are the blokes who would churn first, and these are the blokes who’re hardest to rent and hardest to trust as a business owner. So burnout with managers is a good greater pain point.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Absolutely.
Let’s take a reset. That is Jessica Miller-Merrell, and also you’re listening to the Workology Podcast powered by Ace the HR Exam and our UpSkill HR microcourses. Today I’m talking with Guy Weiss, CEO of ZenZap, about effective worker communication.
So, greater picture. For anyone—not only those that are concerned about ZenZap, although I hope everybody will schedule a demo and learn more about you and what you do—but what communication best practices can managers do straight away, even in the event that they don’t have your tool, to assist make things more streamlined and just less stressful?
Constructing Higher Communication Systems for Frontline Teams
Guy Weiss: I might recommend hiring a tool built for work. It doesn’t matter if it’s ZenZap or Slack or Teams. Because I don’t see separation. You already know, if you go to a celebration or with friends or dinner and also you’re type of bored, everyone checks their emails, right? So that you check your work inbox and then you definately move to, “Possibly I got something from Amazon,” perhaps, I don’t know, it’s a private thing. So people have to opt in and opt out quickly. You possibly can’t do it with personal messaging apps. You only can’t. You’re at all times online, at all times on the go, at all times connected.
I might recommend starting by exploring this market. Attempt to determine which tool works best for you. And I believe I might put the eye on: what tool can we adopt with zero learning curve? So anyone would use it immediately the day after. And begin by just moving those communications from personal to skilled. When you do the separation, 50% of the problems go away. Then you definitely can boost it with agents, with agentic workflows, with search, with to-dos, with plenty of features that this or other alternatives will obviously provide.
Step one is to know that you will have an issue. Second step is to search out a approach to solve it. Third step is to adopt. And I believe that is what I might suggest. I might suggest trying to search out a tool that matches your needs. And you will have special needs—everyone has their very own special needs, every industry, every business, every business owner, how he sees the structure. I might try to simply exit and begin learning and exploring, and talking to people, talking to your employees. Ask them, “What if? What if we had a tool for that? What in case you wouldn’t get those messages? What if? What if I could prevent tons of gigabytes in your phone from pictures being sent or private pictures being stored in your phone? So what if?” So I might start with acknowledging the issue, looking for the choice or for the answer—you will have a number of alternatives—and attempting to adopt.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: That is great. And I’ll say, just like the variety of random photos I even have on my phone from WhatsApp since it routinely downloads those… and I’m like, I don’t know who this dude is, but I’m in some WhatsApp group for professionals or friends or whatever. It’s an actual thing. Where can people go to learn more about you guys and what you’re doing over at ZenZap?
Guy Weiss: To begin with, whoever desires to speak with me can connect. Just write me an email or on LinkedIn. I try to reply to just about all the messages going through, and we get rather a lot. So it’s either me or one among the team, after which we escalate. So whoever desires to speak, we’re open. ZenZap is straightforward; just log into seek for ZenZap WorkChat or ZenZap on ChatGPT, Google, or Gemini, and you could find out. You’ve gotten plenty of content on YouTube, explanatory content, and check out to study team communication. Less about ZenZap, more about team communication. Then you definitely select your alternative. But as someone who works on this industry, I believe it’s good for the industry so everyone uses some type of a tool and doesn’t use those private messaging apps.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Well, we’ll link to your LinkedIn after which the ZenZap website within the show notes, in addition to another helpful resources for worker communication. But I actually appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today about effective worker communication.
Guy Weiss: Thanks. It was a pleasure. Thanks. Thanks, Jessica.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: That could be a wrap on today’s conversation about worker communication, burnout, workplace boundaries, and the growing risks that include counting on personal messaging apps to administer frontline teams. A giant thanks to Guy Weiss for joining us and sharing practical insights on how organizations can create higher, safer, clearer, and more intentional communication practices specifically to your hourly and mobile-first workforce.
What Gen Z’s Snapchat Habits Can Teach Employers About Communication
One thing that I used to be fascinated about, because I don’t use Snapchat, is how prevalent Snapchat communication is to your hourly workforce. And yes, many managers and leaders are communicating with teams over Snapchat. You would possibly not even learn about that. As a note, I’ll include some research around Snapchat and employees from Gen Z, finding that Snapchat is their preference as a digital native. So 40% of those surveyed from this research from Emerald are using Snapchat to construct a relationship online with workplace leaders—so with their peers and likewise their leadership teams. I’m including that within the show notes for this podcast. And perhaps discuss with a few of your leaders to see if employees are creating groups—they probably are—on Snapchat to speak and communicate, and how much stuff is taking place.
One other takeaway from the episode is that this: if communication is about sending effective messages, right? Intentional messages. It’s not about sending more messages. It’s about constructing trust, protecting employees’ time and privacy, and making a system that enables for operational efficiency and worker well-being. Because those employees, especially our hourly workforce doing the job on the market in the sector, they’re incredibly necessary to the success of our business.
In case you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave us a review wherever you take heed to podcasts. And for more resources, HR insights, and conversations designed to allow you to lead smarter, visit workology.com. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
In case you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with one other HR leader. Thanks for listening and joining the Workology Podcast, sponsored by Ace the HR Exam and our UpSkill HR microcourses. Workology has a learning platform for HR certification, recertification, and manager training. It’s also possible to take a look at our recent marketplace over at marketplace.workology.com. This podcast is for the disruptive workplace leader who’s uninterested in the established order. I’m Jessica Miller-Merrell. Until next time, visit workology.com to take heed to all of the episodes and make amends for the Workology Podcast.
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