VoIP’s rise to prominence in recent years, along with the fact that many smartphone users now prefer IM to text messaging, makes it easy to forget that older methods of communication are still worth studying. Take good old text messaging, for example: Many people still turn to SMS daily to get their message across, but, curiously, it hasn’t quite caught on amongst business users.
A recent survey from GetVoIP examined the role text messaging plays in the relationship between employees and their bosses and found that it just isn’t commonly used in such a scenario. Put simply, about three-quarters of employees in the U.S. do not text their bosses at all.
This data is based on a poll of 1082 American employees aged 18 and over, of which just under 80 percent said they don’t text their employers, with roughly 20 percent saying that they do.
GetVoIP then decided to break its group of respondents down by gender and age. In terms of the former, it was discovered that males are roughly three percent more likely to text their bosses than females, which doesn’t seem particularly significant. In terms of the latter, it seems that employees aged 35-44 are almost 15 percent more likely to text their bosses. According to GetVoIP, this likely stems from the level of comfort employees in this age range have because they are more likely to have been in their positions for a longer period of time.
In November, the company released related research suggesting that although a fair percentage of workers will answer calls from their bosses after business hours, this isn’t necessarily a healthy attitude; just because business never stops working, doesn’t mean each individual employee needs to as well. That said, this seems to be a moot point as far as texting is concerned.
Edited by Blaise McNamee