Heart emoticon at work?

June 14, 2024 7:47 AM

Personal opinions needed <3

I'll preface by saying that using the heart emoticons in chat is completely normal at my remote work. It usually indicates "You rock, I appreciate you". Color of the heart does not matter and gender/orientation of the sender or receiver also do not matter at my work.

I'm not wondering about my specific workplace, but I am wondering about external communications. For example, I've with the Teams heart emoticon to a couple external contacts when they send a very effusive thank you email (along the lines of "you're the best!") Is it possible I'm making people uncomfortable and should stop doing that?

posted by Eyelash to Work & Money (32 answers total)

If I recieved a heart emoticon from someone I don't know, who is an external professional contact, I would be a little creeped out and would assume that person is either socially awkward or doesn't understand what they're doing. It wouldn't reassure me of their professional conduct.

YMMV, but I would stick to using it in your own team, where you're absolutely sure it's being recieved in the spirit that it is sent.
posted by fight or flight at 7:49 AM on June 14 [16 favorites]

I’m a heart person. Heart keychains, t-shirts, you name it.

I do not use the heart emoji in professional communication. If somebody posts a pic of a pet or a family in the Fun Chat Channel, I will “heart” it. Or, if it is a colleague I am close to and they said, “I got those medical tests back, I’m all clear!” that would get a heart rather than a thumbs up. But the emoji never appears on Teams and certainly not in email.
posted by Juniper Toast at 7:51 AM on June 14 [22 favorites]

IMO Microsoft is normalizing the heart emoji by making it part of the stock reacts in both Outlook and Teams. If people take it the wrong way at this point, I think that's more on Bill Gates' conscience than yours.

But for what it's worth no I do not personally use the heart react for external coms, and I changed the stock reacts to a custom set and removed the ♥️ in favor of 🤠. Personal preference.

Times are changing, big tech is dictating the terms, I wouldn't carry this in my soul as a deep concern if I were you.
posted by phunniemee at 7:57 AM on June 14 [21 favorites]

At my large workplace, this wouldn't raise eyebrows either coming from or going to an external client, or as a way of emphasizing how thankful you might be if someone picks up your request in Slack. There are some clients where you'd probably not do it due to their obvious formality, and others were you'd probably see the client using a ❤️in their emails within the first week.

So YMMV.
posted by sagc at 7:59 AM on June 14 [5 favorites]

At my job the heart is pretty popular. It really just means "love this!" or all caps "THANK YOU" - a more enthusiastic version of the thumbs up which just means "got it"/"acknowledged"/"agree".

Wracking my brain as to how someone would find it even remotely offensive or uncomfortable on it's own, unless there were other circumstances involved like "this person is kind of creepy toward me at work AND they heart every single damn message and email I send" etc.
posted by windbox at 8:01 AM on June 14 [9 favorites]

I wouldn't be the first to use a heart. I would approach this the same way you approach clothing: You know your dress code at your office, so if t-shirts are acceptable, you can wear a t-shirt. But if you're going to another office, you err on the side of formality the first time. If everyone's wearing t-shirts, then you can wear a t-shirt the next time.

That said, anyone who's really offended by a heart needs to get over themselves.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:04 AM on June 14 [9 favorites]

Depends what age your contacts are. For anyone 30 and under, it wouldnt even batt an eyelash.
posted by winterportage at 8:06 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

I don't think there's any issue with using the heart emoji necessarily, but I go with the more "yeah buddy, high five!" vibe of the 🙌🏻 emoji much more of the time. (That emoji can also be read as hands up in praise, which also works!)
posted by limeonaire at 8:14 AM on June 14

+1 : do not spare a further consideration for this.

echoing @phunniemee’s comment that this is attributable to microsoft. rarely would i see a heart emoji reaction in slack (maybe never?), but colleagues in current workplace — a teams shop — use it relentlessly. i’ve climbed aboard the train to fit in, but i sure do miss party-parrot.
posted by tamarack at 8:15 AM on June 14 [2 favorites]

React yes, chat no. I don't feel strongly about this.
posted by bowbeacon at 8:18 AM on June 14 [3 favorites]

I don't care for it personally, but it's just one of those things that is normal for young people and not for me (sob!) and in the interests of not ossifying quite so fast, I've decided I'd better accustom myself.
posted by Frowner at 8:27 AM on June 14 [5 favorites]

My team of professionals includes many Gen Z and we use hearts daily and it’s totally fine. I’m 40 and it had never occurred to me not to.
posted by samthemander at 8:30 AM on June 14 [2 favorites]

I doubt you're making them uncomfortable, but you may be making them think you're a little too unprofessional/casual. I know the young people use it more freely, but I actually think that's a generational mistake, in the sense that the workplace isn't better when we're more open with each other. (Like, that guy who does those bits of "each generation [encounters work scenario]"? He looks to be a Millennial so presumably the Gen X reactions are meant to be satirical [the Boomer ones certainly are!] but I'm usually like, yeah, that's the most appropriate one there--low-drama, no false chumminess, focused on getting the work done.)

Note: I'm a lawyer so my external communications, even the non-adversarial ones, tend towards the more formal. Even I could see this being unremarkable among creative collaborators.
posted by praemunire at 8:33 AM on June 14 [2 favorites]

Nthing that it is a Microsoft Teams thing.

I see it a lot at my large employer. I don't use it much myself, but have always interpreted to mean something like "I appreciate you/this." In my mind it is just a pleasant acknowledgement and I don't ever stew over it more than that or feel uncomfortable about it.
posted by synecdoche at 8:48 AM on June 14 [1 favorite]

My approach to any workplace interaction is: if it's optional, I'm not doing it. So I'm nopeing out of everything that is truly optional: whether it's a "fun" lunch-and-chat Zoom meeting or an invitation to participate in Mental Health Awareness Week Bingo .... or sending heart emojis to people.

I'm not saying you should nope out because this is a big deal. Who knows, maybe it's a big deal, maybe it's not. Maybe someone feels weird about it, maybe nobody does. You won't know until someone says something. Worrying about it now is unpaid emotional labor.

The reason to nope out of optional things is because your workplace doesn't deserve your extra unpaid efforts to figure out whether it is a big deal or not, whether it's inappropriate or not. You're not getting paid to do this emotional labor of wondering where the line is and then working to toe it. So my advice is, just don't do it!
posted by MiraK at 8:49 AM on June 14 [2 favorites]

Speaking as an old fuddy-duddy it would reduce my expectations about the professionalism and competence of a total stranger who sent it. If we already have some connection then it wouldn’t matter much either way.

Basically, I think it’s a risky way to make a first impression.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:02 AM on June 14 [3 favorites]

Externally, I’d err on the side of not using it because it’s more likely external contacts don’t share your internal “casual-heart” culture. I’d worry about not being taken seriously. I personally wouldn’t worry too much about being seen as creepy though that’s possible; I absolutely would worry creepy men would assume I was open to sexual advances. Not that that’s my job to control but it’s happened enough that I have a professional wall up.
posted by kapers at 9:21 AM on June 14 [2 favorites]

In a chat I heart the comment but I don’t sent a heart emoji that feels too personal. Prayer hands 🙏 is what I use for appreciation there. Or 😻 because the cheese factor takes out the personal, it’s more like I love that thing you did thank you, as opposed to a creepy I heart you. To acknowledge a thank you from someone there’s the impersonal 👍 or I also like a gif of someone doing the wink+finger point.

This is all in my head tho.

In summary, hieroglyphic communication is weird.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:24 AM on June 14 [3 favorites]

I’m in software development and use heart when I wish without worrying about it. Many folks I work with also use it. In slack, iMessage, and teams.
posted by creiszhanson at 9:32 AM on June 14

At my workplace (higher ed admin) emoticons of all sorts (including hearts) are passed around freely on Teams. But email tends to still be a bit more professional, though I have gotten "thumbs up" responses to some of my emails. I imagine this will vary by workplace/profession, and I wouldn't worry about it too much.
posted by coffeecat at 9:33 AM on June 14

At my workplace, heart emojis are used on Slack, but I would never, ever use them with an external professional contact, and I would think it was really weird if I received an email with one from someone I was in only a professional relationship with.

I am also old, and it's very possible age makes a difference here, but since no one is going to be weirded out by NOT getting one, I'd err on the side of avoiding if I were you.

This could be an interesting question for Ask A Manager.
posted by FencingGal at 9:44 AM on June 14 [4 favorites]

I maintain a pretty strict work/life boundary and as part of that am sort of minimally personal at work so this isn't really within the range of things I'd ever do other than maybe with a couple of my very favorite work people who I would genuinely be friends with if we were not colleagues.

But I wouldn't be bothered in any way if someone else, including an external client, did this. It seems well within current workplace norms to me - but with a huge caveat that I hail from academia, where our workplace norms are Not Normal in ways both good and bad.
posted by Stacey at 9:50 AM on June 14

Why not just say what you mean? THANK YOU! or Love this! is hard to misconstrue. As a professional, why even risk it being misinterpreted? Take the 2 seconds to type out what you want the recipient to know.

For context, as a grown ass professional adult, I would not use any emoji in any professional communication. Emojis should be reserved for friends, family and lovers.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:50 AM on June 14

I tend not to use emoji in work communication because of the risk of not being clear in what I mean. I've had communications with others that used emoji where I had to follow up with requests for a clarification. My goal is to avoid that.

I don't think they're immature or wrong per se, but in the context of a work communication I want to put clarity above other concerns. This is further elevated because you're communicating outside of your workplace and that means you're interacting with a someone who might have a different way of interpreting emoji as part of their companies teams/slack/etc.
posted by Ferreous at 10:53 AM on June 14

Unless it's a close work friend, I follow other people's lead - if multiple people are reacting to a Slack post with the heart emoji, for example, I'll use it too, but I seldom use it spontaneously unless I'm certain it would be welcome and well received.
posted by terretu at 11:19 AM on June 14

I use a lot of professional judgment here - I am in a reasonably formal field but have found in my work things get better the more human/real I am. And so if the person is giving me the vibes that they're also a human/real person at work, then I will lean into more informal, friendly communications. I do a lot of :) in my job and have GIFs in a lot of my threads at work.

If I don't know the person or they've indicated through their communication style that I am interacting with their professional self or are quite honestly just an older, white male - I go full formal.
posted by openhearted at 11:57 AM on June 14 [2 favorites]

My general practice in the modern corporate world has been: heart emoticon, no; but heart emoji/slackmoji, yes. The connotations between these two symbols differ enough that I'd be wary of using the emoticon in an environment where it wasn't an established norm.
posted by majick at 4:50 PM on June 14

Response by poster: Thanks for the perspectives everyone! Fascinating to see how people are so far apart on this. I won't be sending anymore heart emojis to anyone who isn't at my workplace, to stay on the safe side. (For the record all emojis, including the ones via email were a "react" button thing, not typing out/pasting hearts in my emails or in chat. And it was a rare thing, I've done it twice to external contacts and might use it once a week with whichever random team member is being above and beyond awesome.)

BUT I just figured out that the react button is not tied to Outlook for everyone. People who don't have Teams will get a message saying "so and so responded to your message" so that kind of defeats the point of the react outside my workplace anyway.

Thanks for mentioning that you can change the stock reacts phunniemee, I'll definitely be taking a look at that!
posted by Eyelash at 8:55 PM on June 14

I teach at a university so have an extremely good sample of age ranges, and I definitely think this is an age thing as much as other factors. I wouldn’t do it with someone much older than 40 unless they’re terminally online, and definitely not with any of my senior colleagues. Junior colleagues if they do it first at some point I might consider it. Not students ever (though they will do this to me and probably wouldn’t care, so maybe this is about me rather than them). My university does have Teams but in this case I don’t think that’s what’s driving the trends I see.
posted by advil at 7:39 AM on June 15

Yeah, Microsoft office email offering the heart emoji as a reaction changes things a lot, I think. I tap it pretty often to express support or show appreciation for colleagues. I also work in a pretty young, informal environment in the helping field, so that probably influences things.
posted by bearette at 2:11 PM on June 15

I would, however, feel it a bit weird to include the heart emoji in the body of an email or text (as opposed to it being a reaction) with a colleague
posted by bearette at 2:19 PM on June 15

I see this from my med students on occasion (we do have Teams but no one uses it, so I get this annoying Microsoft Daily Digest email about how someone liked my email, like dude that was supposed to remind you to turn in your final assignment, just upload the damn thing so I can grade it).

As you can probably tell, I find it mildly unprofessional, but I also recognize that they are usually new to professional norms. Much less common from older students or colleagues. Interestingly I don't mind it as much coming from peers. But I guess if the gist of the original email were "hey please upload your COI disclosure!" an emoji would be inappropriate too.

There's also a factor of who's replying on the phone vs computer.
posted by basalganglia at 12:48 AM on June 16 [1 favorite]