Facebook's new product hopes to revolutionise the workplace

Many companies still ban social media during office hours for fear it will make employees less productive. 

However, there are a number of workplace communication tools – such as Yammer and Skype for Business – which have thrived in the corporate space in recent years. It’s this share of the market that Facebook wants a part of. 

The social media giant held its global launch of ‘Workplace’ in London yesterday following an 18-month trial. Around 1,000 companies took part in the pilot from all industry sectors, including Danone, Oxfam and Booking.com.  

Like the Facebook we know, the business tool allows people to chat in real time and post group messages, as well as see their newsfeed and trending posts. But Workplace is specifically designed for business, with a different look and feel (think grey, muted colours) extra-strong security settings, and no adverts. There is an auto translate feature to help employees from different countries to communicate more easily, a company dashboard and live-streaming functionality. The focus is very much ‘mobile first,’ so that all employees have access – from those on the shop floor to the CEO – even if they haven’t got PCs.