Who doesn’t use emojis now?

Many of us resisted for a few months, or was it years? We thought emojis were banal, frivolous, without purpose, unprofessional even. Now they have become a vital part of organisational comms it seems. Adam McCulloch reports

Change is often imperceptible. Work colleagues of a certain age often remind each other what life was like before email, and before the internet. Now, so many are working at home the opportunities for reminiscing are fewer and further between but the conversation is more likely to involve statements such as “It’s amazing to think I used to commute to the office every day.” The truth is we accept huge changes in our lives that at one time may have appeared unthinkable, and quickly adapt.

For example, there was a time before emoticons and emojis – and it was just a few years ago. For those who prefer direct, functional, emotionless communication, the age of the emoji is a disaster. Now, most communications have to be accompanied by perhaps an icon of a happy face, a hysterically happy face, a sighing eye-rolling face, a face in sunglasses looking smug, a champagne and party hat symbol, a turd, or for reasons that escape me, an aubergine (at least I think it’s an aubergine).

Perfect for the passive aggressive among us, a new mode of communication has been invented based on tone without having to cleverly use actual words to transmit one’s feelings. And, like home-delivered takeaway food and Netflix, a devastating global disease has given it a huge leg up.

Personnel Today has been contacted by a telecommunications provider, so often the harbingers of news that manages to be simultaneously laughable and profound, that has carried out research into the use of emojis.

This found that more than two-fifths of Brits (nearly half, surely, but never mind) are using emojis to communicate at work with their colleagues or clients.

TextAnywhere looked into the emoji habits of 1,000 employees in the UK and revealed that 44.2% are using emojis in their texts and emails in the workplace.

The company tells us that “With the blurred lines between working from home and the office, previous research from TextAnywhere showed over 67% of employees access their work chat or emails via their personal phones. Following this trend, new data shows one in three employees are using emojis to text their colleagues and a further 8% use emojis in emails to their peers at work.”

Emjay Lofts, head of marketing at TextAnywhere added: “As the pandemic left us reliant on technology to communicate with one another, the speed at which individuals wish to send their message, email or text has risen. Emojis can aid tech users in relaying their messages and emotions while shortening the amount of time it takes to convey the meaning of the message.

“While emojis were first less common in the workplace, the research shows over two-fifths of Brits are now using emojis to communicate with their colleagues. This demonstrates the shift in language within the workplace, particularly as platforms such as Teams and Slack have been introduced into companies as a growing number of individuals continue to lend both office and remote working.”

However, only 3% of workers said they used emojis when contacting clients, presumably the last bastion that will fall.

The more forward-thinking HR professional must be wondering what the implications are of all this. Could discrimination cases be brought on the basis of the misuse of emojis at work? Could internal grievances result from pressing the wrong icon (“I used the clown symbol because I thought what he said was funny – I wasn’t saying he was incompetent!“)? Smartphones can get people into a lot of trouble, as the porn-watching MP found today; what dangers lurk in the proliferating use of emoticons?

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There was a time when you had to pick up a telephone, or leave a note. We’ll discuss this at Personnel Today when we’re next all in. Sometime in 2023 perhaps.

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