As an organisation, Slack is used as our main form of internal communications, and we want to equip you to be able to use and engage with it effectively.
This guidance will cover a few key areas around main channels to engage with as well as some tips on how to best utilize Channels and Threads.
Staff Wide Channels
We have seven channels that all staff are encouraged to engage with.
- All Staff Updates – Company-wide announcements (It is expected that all staff are included in this channel)
- Work Chat – A place to ask questions or share work related updates from across Safe Families & Home for Good.
- Social Chat – A place to share non-work-related content – holiday recommendations, favourite TV show at the moment, good reads etc.
- Prayer Requests – A place to share your prayer requests with the wider teams.
- Stories of Hope – A place to share the amazing stories we see everyday.
- System Tips and Updates – A space where we'll post tips and tricks to make life a little easier. Feel free to post your own.
- Milestones – Key milestones in the life of Safe Families & Home for Good
As noted, it is expected that all staff are included in the All Staff Updates channel. This channel is where we will share key information that every staff member needs to be aware of, so please do make sure you read, react and engage with any message posted.
Channels
Channels are a great way to engage a specific group of people on a particular topic / project / event etc. We’d encourage you that when an ongoing conversation is needed between 3 or more people, you create a channel. This is to allow the conversation to be easily found when searching on slack. To create a channel simply click ‘add channel’ at the bottom of your channels list. You can also change a current conversation to a ‘private channel’ by clicking the list of names at the top of the conversation, click settings and there is an option to ‘change to a private channel.’
When naming a channel, below are some helpful templates to consider:
- The channel is for a specific project - #proj-name-of-project-date (example – #proj-spring-harvest-25)
- The channel is temporary ie, only needed for a short time frame - #temp-topic/event (example - #temp-vision-and-values-london)
- The channel is for a specific region or team – #region-department-topic (example - #nat-advocacy-team)
When a channel is only being used temporarily, we’d encourage you to archive the channel once no longer in use. This removes it from everyone’s list so only the active channels are seen. It can still be found when searched for in case you need to go back to it for any reason.
Threads
Threads are a very helpful tool when replying to messages as it allows all the messages related to one particular conversation to remain together and keeps the conversation flow smooth. To reply to a message in a thread simply hover of the message and click on the speech bubble where a prompt will come up saying ‘Reply in thread.’ You do have the option to send the thread to the main message as well. This way it notifies those in the message to read it and keeps it as part of the thread.
If you have any questions about Slack and the features it offers, please do reach out to the Systems team here.