Fast Company: The Business Etiquette Guide to Emojis

When was the last time you added a smiley or some other small graphic as a stand-in for words in a message to your boss or coworkers? Chances are it was pretty recent: A recent study found that nearly half (41%) of workers use emojis in professional communications. And among the senior managers polled, 61% said it's fine, at least in some situations.

The study was conducted by OfficeTeam, a temp staffing service that’s a division of Robert Half. It included responses from more than 300 senior managers at U.S. companies with more that 20 employees, and more than 350 U.S. workers who are employed in office environments.

Of the managers surveyed 21% found the use of the "smiley face" fun, 41% said the "OK" hand sign was fine in certain situations, and 39% found the "thumbs down" unprofessional. Only 19% of employees admitted to using them all the time to indicate the emotion behind their professional communications. Thirty-three percent said they eschew the graphics entirely and prefer to express themselves through their words.

The challenge is that a written expression of emotion in email, texts or even less asynchronous chats, isn’t always received in the spirit it was intended. Even teams who are accustomed to working remotely won’t always get a humorous reference or sarcasm, in large part because they only know each other digitally. So it’s no wonder that emojis have become a common crutch to try to express our feelings.

“"To smiley or not to smiley, that is the question. Unless you are absolutely certain an emoticon will be received well, avoid using them. To unsympathetic eyes, or simply to someone who doesn’t know you well, they look juvenile in business," said Anna Post, the other of the website Emily Post.

For those of us who rely on group chat platforms like Slack to get work done, that suggestion simply doesn’t make sense. Fast Company recently covered some of the finer points of communication on Slack. In light of this study, Fast Company took a deeper dive into burgeoning emoji use and asked some professionals who work with remote teams for their best practices.