Private messages are by definition secured to a named receiver, or are sent within a group marked ‘Private’, where messages are secured to members only. SWOOP respects these security setting in the dashboard.

Our benchmarking activities indicate that private groups are usually small in size (less than 50 members), with many looking like cohesive teams i.e. high cohesion and low diversity.

SWOOP also reports on private messages between users, which is equivalent to a personal email. We have noted that in some organisations, there are staff who do not have access to a company email system, but do have access to Workplace. These private messages could be considered anomalies.

What should your Public/Private split be? This will depend on the type of organisation you are. For instance, a legal or advisory firm may have teams that are legally required to secure their content and discussions. Other organisations may not have such legal restrictions and therefore there is little reason to not have all messages as public. 

Workplace is a platform that should be used for open sharing. The core value proposition is fundamentally about open knowledge sharing. The ability to secure groups or messages exists in Workplace to accommodate, more so than facilitate, private sharing when required. Our benchmarks have the average Public/Private split at around 80% Public. If your Public/Private message split is down around the 50% split, you may need to consider whether the sharing principles for Workplace are being effectively communicated. If the private message use is indeed valid, you may want to consider providing an alternative platform for secure communications, leaving Workplace as an open sharing platform.