Let’s face it, emojis are everything these days. We’re now seeing emojis make their way into Skype with message reactions, and they’ve managed even become giant stickers in popular apps like Snapchat and Instagram. But is it appropriate to send your boss a smiley face emoji in that important email? Well, one Microsoft and YouGov study examined the popularity of emojis, finding that they are “fair game” in the workplace.
The study finds best practices for using emojis and even offers up tips for those newcomers in the office who are looking to communicate more effectively. Overall, it finds that 70% of millennials feel that there is a place for emotions in the workplace, though they also prefer to use emoticons with friends or peers, and not with their boss and customers or clients.
More specifically, 88% of millennials said they use emoticons are work to communicate with co-workers who are friends, and 65% of millennials think that the best situations for emoticons are in one-on-one conversations. Other tidbits from the study can be seen below.
- Millennials feel there is a primary purpose for using emoticons that translates to work communcations.
- 40% of millennials use emoticons at work as a way to better personalize a message.
- 21% use emoticons in the setting of more casual conversation.
- 74% of those who use emoitcons reguarly are using them in instant messages or text messages on a mobile device.
- Millennials tend to appreciate emoticons when reciving positive feedback but find that when reciving a more critical response, emoticons do not soften the message ot make unfomrtable situations less awkward.
- Love-related emoticons tend to make millennials feel uncomfortable.
- When receiving poisitive feedback, emoticons made millennials feel happy or proud.
So, do you think this study will change the way you use emojis? What are your favorite emojis to use in the workplace or with your friends? Did you know that some new emojis are coming to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
