I work as a payroll manager at Lujatalo Oy. The most important digital tools in my work are the HR and payroll system Mepco and email program Outlook. Another digital tool I use every day is the Teams app for communicating and organizing meetings with my team and colleagues, as well as for sharing and saving files. In my work, I also often use Microsoft programs such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint and I find using them is easy and effortless. In addition to these various digital programs, I also need more traditional printed texts to help me in my work almost every day, such as collective agreements in the construction industry and various legal texts, such as the Working Hours Act and the Annual Holiday Act. Of course in these days, these text are also available in digital form, but I’m old-school type with these and I prefer reading them in printed text although nowadays it would be easier to search for answers in the text in digital form by using the “search” function.
I use some social media tools at work and follow, for example, my employer’s Instagram and Facebook profiles and sometimes I have left comments on them or share publications on my own feed. I also have a number of colleagues as followers on these social media channels and I follow them myself. In my work, I use LinkedIn more than Facebook and Instagram, where I share, for example, thoughts related to my own work, as well as republish writings and job applications published by my employer. Through LinkedIn, I have many connections with colleagues in different parts of Finland, but also connections with people who have left and continued their careers somewhere else. On LinkedIn I also have connections with people I have met through my studies. I think LinkedIn is a good channel to keep in touch with current and former colleagues and it can also enable new job offers.
In addition to the digital tools mentioned above, I also use WhatsApp service a lot in my work. We have our own groups with our team and colleagues, to which we send messages so called alert cases and problems. Joining the groups has been completely voluntary, but i feel that the group has made the supervisors’ work easier in terms of communication and you don’t have to, for example, call every employees desperately. In addition to this groups we have of course also the own, not so alert group, for funny cat videos and memes.
NEW APPLICATIONS/ SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS
For the new services I chose Evernote, YouTube, ChatGPT, Miro and X
Evernote
I haven’t heard or used this service before, but this seems like a useful tool for managing work tasks and family schedules. It’s a bit like an electronic version of the post-it notes that my desk is constantly full of. The free version has quite limited functionality, and I don’t know if it would be possible to combine, for example, my work calendar with my husbands work calendar so our work trips and other schedules would be better handled. I will definitely get to know more about this service.
YouTube
YouTube is a platform I use a lot, but not at all in work life. YouTube is a platform where you can find videos of all kinds of material on almost any topic. Anyone can add videos there, and for this reason good media literacy is also necessary if you use YouTube at work. On the other hand, you can find there different instructions very easily and quickly, or find presentation or educational videos on your work topics. I don’t know why in my own thoughts I have associated YouTube only with entertainment, and I have not understood the possibility of it also in working life. As an employer, we could also use YouTube and publish there, for example, videos from construction sites and improve ours’s visibility or advertise our services.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT or chatbot is an artificial intelligence (AI) application that gives you answers to questions you ask or can write you a story on a topic you name. It’s a good tool that I recently discovered and it makes it really easy to find simply answers to things like new concepts. I have not used it at work yet, but I will definitely use it in the future and I’m looking forward to what else AI will bring in working life and what it can enable in the future.
Miro
Miro is the AI-powered real-time visual workspace where you can mange different project and do to-do-list with work team or any kind of group. It seemed very interesting and I definitely will get more familiar with its possibilities as a tool for my own team. I like possibility of colorful presentations.
X
X (former known as Twitter) is a messaging application where users can send short tweets. It is focused on current affairs. I have never used this myself, but I see the possibilities of using it in my own work and keeping up to date with important news and topics.
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media enables an easy and quick way to keep in touch with friends and family, and I think it is justified to use it in a certain way in working life as well. Social media has both positive and negative effects on working life, and drawing the line between working life and free time is blurring more and more all the time. For example, we are constantly reachable between social media and we may monitor work-related issues through it also in our free time.
Sometimes I wonder is it smart to accept colleagues and, for example, a supervisor as a friend on Facebook and maybe it would be wiser to keep free time and professional time separately on social media. It is difficult to delimit, because even if you keep your feed to the point, your friends can share pictures or videos with you or tag you in their own feeds without your permission, so your colleagues can also see these materials about you.
It is also good to recognize and understand information security and the challenges it brings when talking about social media both in work life and as a private person. When using social media, you should also know how to be critical of sources, and not believe everything you read or see.
The use of social media in working life, for example as a platform for job announcements and in the publication of various information, will increase even more in the future, and I personally believe that the use of AI in making them will also increase in the future. It is already difficult to see difference between real news and fake news, and I fear that in the future this will be even more challenging.
SELF EVALUATION
Getting to know new platforms was interesting and I came across completely new platforms that I had never heard but what I can use in my work to help my tasks.
It was also interesting to read other students’ thoughts about social media and its positive and negative sides. I like also the examples how different workplaces make use of different platforms in their work and got some ideas to experiment with in my own work.
Sometimes writing in English seemed challenging, but to my joy I found that I got everything written and towards the end it started to flow flow a little better.