A stat crossed my desk that suggested 50% of emails aren’t understood.
50% – really ??!!
I did a bit of research and found this article.
The article indicates that the words we use often land in ways we didn’t intend.
A compliment turns sarcastic.
A question turns passive aggressive.
The suggestion the article provided was to leverage emojis to indicate our intent.
There was a generational gap in the opinion of using emojis at work.
Younger employees see the value and older employees feel they are unprofessional.
My Perspective
I believe we will see more emojis in communication.
The key is to be conscious of how we are using them.
I use emojis more often in text than in email communications.
The article made me aware that I use text in some of the ways that could be misread.
My next step was to read articles about the meaning of emojis.
This was not good.
I realized my “favorite” go to emoji the simple smiley face 🙂 is a sarcastic response.
Good grief.
For those of you who have seen me use this, I had no idea!!
The articles got me thinking about how I have interpreted the communication from others.
Maybe those sarcastic notes over the years weren’t really intended in that way.
I’m going to spend more time considering this with future communications – inbound & outbound.
Your Turn
Do you use emojis in work communication?
Do you believe they can help communicate the intent of a note?
How might this change how you send and receive messages in the future?