I'm about to start work for a fast food restaurant at a new location they are opening soon (in Australia). After some back and forth emails with management exchanging forms, pay details, etc, I (and all other soon-to-be colleagues) have suddenly been added to a Whatsapp group without our consent.
Management have insisted that this won't be the only form of communication and that all important information will be emailed/texted to us directly. But so far they have used the app to highlight training schedules, pay system application sign-in info, and key contact details, without also sending this information via email or text. Since there are 83 people in this one group chat, key info gets clouded very quickly by all the chat.
Could any other Australians advise whether a workplace can add someone to a Whatsapp group without their consent? And how best to let management know that I would prefer to be contacted via email/text? I have run this by my workforce/jobseeker provider but they didn't seem too bothered by it. Ideally I would like to remove myself from this Whatsapp group, would I risk missing out key information if I did this?