WhatsApp is increasingly being used as evidence in employment tribunals, fuelling warnings to avoid using the social media app at work.

The number of employment tribunals making reference to WhatsApp has almost tripled since 2020, from 150 hearings to 427, according to the British HM Courts and Tribunal Service.

Leaving a colleague out of a WhatsApp group can also be grounds for complaint.Credit:

Financial institutions, including NatWest, have now banned staff from using private messaging services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

Employees could be dismissed for private messages that criticised their employer or manager, lawyers have warned, with jokes about protected characteristics, such as someone’s age, sex or sexual orientation, also posing a risk.

Ian Jones, the director and principal solicitor at Spencer Shaw, told The Telegraph in London: “If there is a sufficient work connection to the WhatsApp group, almost inevitable if the members are a group of work colleagues exclusively, then any wrongdoing by an employee – harassing comments, discriminatory behaviour (even if unintended), bullying, reference to sex or sexual issues – will mean that the employee may be liable to disciplinary or even legal action.”

Leaving a colleague out of a WhatsApp group can also be grounds for complaint. Darren Case, a housing officer, was sacked after setting up a WhatsApp group called “Wolfpack”, inspired by a name given to a group of friends in the Hangover film franchise.

It doesn’t matter what........

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