Gen-Z Employees Don’t Do Email
Emojis have forever changed business communications. And that’s a good thing
By Michael Litt
I’ll admit I was late to the emoji party. For years now, people have been texting me thumbs up, fire bursts, and the occasional unicorn. But I held out, responding with plain old text. Then one day I finally decided to dive into my emoji keyboard.
That’s when I discovered the incredible communicative power of something as simple as a high-five icon. One tiny drawing. A whole world of emotion and context.
Even more surprising, this realization didn’t come in my personal communications. It came at work, where the majority of our young, gen-Z workforce is rapidly moving beyond using text as their primary mode of communication.
For those, like myself, who came of age in the era of email, it might be easy to assume that text is and will always be king. After all, emojis, GIFs, and Instagram-style selfie videos don’t have the usual gravitas we assign to workplace communications. Opinions are still split as to whether they’re acceptable in a business environment at all. But the proliferation of powerful (and emoji-friendly) workplace communication platforms like Slack suggest the debate is over.
