Facebook ready to tackle the workplace

Facebook at Work, Facebook Inc’s professional version of its social network, is expected to launch in the coming months after spending a year in tests, a company executive said.

Facebook at Work has been built off Facebook’s back-end, making the user experience familiar for a wide range of users.

It is a free, “invite-only” service for companies so far and will be open to all companies once launched.

Company admins can view their company’s Facebook at Work insights, which include employee signup, group and posting activity.

Professional social platforms like LinkedIn and Slack have seen real success, so it’s no surprise that Facebook wants to join in. This week also saw the unveiling of new hardware for training neural networks, codenamed “Big Sur”.

And the move requires different strengths, a shift in sales strategy and a modified business model, according to Julien Codorniou, the company’s director of global platform partnerships, and leader of the Facebook at Work team. Candy Crush won’t be available on Facebook at Work, for instance, and companies will be in control of what happens on the site.

“Facebook at Work was created completely for use within a company – that means employees’ Facebook at Work info is safe, secure, confidential and completely separate from their personal Facebook profile”, the company explained earlier this year. “I would say 95 per cent of what we developed for Facebook is also adopted for Facebook at Work”. Available for desktop and mobile devices, the app will function much like the regular Facebook, except that posts, messages and other content will be visible only to users with company work accounts.

As its name suggests, Facebook at Work is geared towards office life and hopes to improve communication and collaboration amongst colleagues.

The service has been in development for almost a year and a half. Until quite recently, it was common practice for companies to ban or even block Facebook on work computers, claiming that it merely served as a distraction.

“The fundamental bet behind Facebook at Work is that a more connected workplace becomes a more productive workplace”, he says.