“We need to talk ASAP.”
This might be the worst message you can receive at work. You freeze. Time stops. “Am I fired??” you think. “Am I being demoted? Has our project just been canceled?” Let the catastrophizing begin!
Workplace communication is overwhelmingly written these days. And given that we’re always running a million miles a minute – not to mention the fact that writing is just plain hard – it’s all too easy for the message to get lost or cause confusion. Sometimes we interpret them incorrectly, sometimes we can’t interpret them at all.
Aside from being annoying, all these puzzling emails and chats are costly. Atlassian’s Teamwork Lab partnered with YouGov to survey 10,000 knowledge workers across five countries (US, France, Germany, India, Australia) and found that more than a third of the workforce loses 40-plus hours each year to unclear written communication.
That’s right: you could take an extra week’s vacation with the time you waste spinning your wheels and/or revamping work in a panic because an email was unclear. Think of this as “emotional overhead.”
Opportunities for confusion are everywhere
We write at work a lot. A full 93% of workers we surveyed regularly communicate in writing, with 44% reporting this as their primary mode. (For those keeping score, email is still the most popular tool.) And 62% of respondents say writing is the best way to go when you need to communicate with extreme clarity.
But here’s the rub: written communication is also the most fertile ground for confusion. In fact, 64% say they waste time struggling to interpret written messages from colleagues at least a few times a month, if not more frequently (even daily).
In sum, written communication is both really important and really hard to get right. Without precise, expressive writing it can be hard to know what’s important, how urgent something is, or how your colleagues feel. A note that took 30 seconds to write can leave a team spinning for hours.
World-class communication is the new superpower
With so much work happening online today, relying on body language and tone of voice to convey meaning seems like a quaint vestige of yesteryear. In our modern era of workplace apps and distributed teams, you have to be intentional about what you share and explicit in the way you say it.
Does that mean every email needs to feel like high-stakes roulette? No. For starters, simply encouraging people to share their emotions (pleased, curious, frustrated, etc.) in their written communications and everyday interactions, the whole team is three times more likely to be highly productive. They encounter fewer bottlenecks due to lack of clarity and need to re-do work less often.
Let’s look at a few ways you can incorporate some new communication practices and set yourself apart.
Break through the noise with emojis
Like you, your colleagues are awash in emails, chats, comments, and ticket updates that pull their attention in any number of directions. It’s taxing just to sift through it all, trying to figure out what’s worth paying attention to. But our study revealed there’s a helpful little resource sitting right there in your menu bar that you may have overlooked: emojis.
Yes, the emoji has made its way into the workplace and is increasingly accepted as a workplace norm. Nearly half our survey participants say their team uses a wide range of emojis in day-to-day communication. In fact, when emojis are an established part of the communications culture, 78% of respondents admit they’re more likely to read a chat message with emojis or open an email if there’s one in the subject line. Cheap trick? Maybe. But it’s effective.
Make your message easy to understand
Emojis will help your message get noticed, but making sure your message has the intended impact is all about the words.
1️⃣ First, be thoughtful about how much information you’re conveying, and to whom. Don’t send a complete written history of your project if all they really need to know is that you’ve reached your first milestone.
2️⃣ Second, provide context. The classic “We need to talk” would be vastly improved by simply stating what you want to talk about, even if it’s a difficult subject. “We need to talk about the declining Q2 numbers” might leave the other person with a pit in their stomach, but at least they have a chance to prepare for the discussion. (Which, by the way, will make it a more productive discussion.)
3️⃣ Last, clarify your frame of mind. Again, writing is fertile ground for miscommunication, so to avoid confusion, name the feeling. “I’m really impressed with these revisions” or “This isn’t urgent” saves people the emotional overhead of quietly panicking while they try to figure out whether or not they’re in trouble.
Emojis are a great shortcut for conveying emotion – that’s how they got their start, after all. Let’s say you email a draft of this quarter’s report to your boss. A response like “This is fine” leaves you wondering whether you can take that at face value, or if they hate it but are too busy to tell you why. Add one emoji, making it “This is fine ,” and the message is far less ambiguous.
65% of workers we surveyed use emojis to help convey their intended tone or set the vibe. Unsurprisingly, there’s a generational split here. 88% of Gen Z workers say emojis are helpful when communicating with colleagues, while only 49% of Boomers and GenXers agree. Of course, some emojis themselves can be interpreted more than one way, and the double meanings aren’t always safe for work. Best to start with facial expressions and thumbs-up/down until you get a feel for the prevailing emoji culture amongst your colleagues. Maybe a if you’re feeling edgy.
Use the right tool for the job
If you’re doing your best to write clearly and expressively, and you’re still running into trouble, it’s time to examine the medium you’re using. Email is the go-to for many people, but it’s not conducive to group discussions – chat is better for that. Likewise, chat is limiting if you’re trying to explain a complex challenge or process. In those cases, a document that makes good use of font size, text color, etc., and perhaps includes embedded images or video, is a better vehicle.
Sometimes a video message or *gasp!* a meeting is the best way to provide an update or explanation with emotional resonance. Our internal research also found that Loom updates are more effective than written updates for manager connection and recognition. This makes sense: a video in which you can see someone’s facial expressions and body language helps people understand where you’re coming from, particularly when delivering difficult news.
How the best teams avoid emotional overhead
To round out our study, we looked at how high-performing teams use written communication and found a number of common threads. The most productive teams:
- Are less likely to use email as the default for communicating
- Prefer written communication, especially when clarity is the priority
- Are encouraged to express emotion at work and feel connected to each other
- Are more likely to work in environments where emojis are a part of the company culture
As a result, these teams waste less time trying to understand written messages or figuring out what their manager wants. In other words, their emotional overhead is very low.
They’re also doing themselves a giant favor individually. They’re less stressed because they deal with less emotional overhead. And they’re enhancing their professional reputation by being excellent communicators.
Becoming a world-class communicator is also a way to do yourself a favor. You (and your colleagues) will be less stressed and more productive. Plus, you’ll enhance your reputation as someone others want to work with. So go ahead and add that smiley face to keep the good vibes flowing. It sure beats using a ton of exclamation points
Special thanks to Sarah Goff-Dupont for her contributions to this article.