37% of employees have wondered if emojis are professional

Emojis are a quick, succinct way to get your point across, and let’s be real, they’re just downright fun, but if you’ve ever wondered if they’re work appropriate, take heart, you’re not alone.

According to a new survey from Glassdoor, professionals frequently use emojis to communicate, yet, at the same time, wonder if doing so is work appropriate. Nearly 37% of professionals have questioned whether emoji usage was suitable for work, and this jumps to 41% for Gen Z. However, people ages 21–25 also tend to be the heaviest emoji users: 41% of them use emojis at work.

Emojis use also seems to be industry dependent. In particular, people-centric industries, such as healthcare, education, entertainment, consulting, and advertising, had the highest rates of emoji use. But the most popular emojis for the industries differed. For example, while teachers leaned into emotions that expressed warmth or caring, healthcare workers were more inclined to use emojis that revealed dark humor or burnout. Those in advertising used emojis that emphasized both “flair and feedback,” such as music and applause hands.

Fittingly, those who used emojis the least were “regulated and risk aware” fields like insurance and real estate. 

While emojis tend to be used differently across industries, the survey pointed to some common ground. Employees across industries pointed to three emojis as being the most snide: thumbs up, ellipses (…), and the simple smiling emoji. Still, some respondents said that how to interpret an emoji really depends on context, mainly, who is doing the sending. “I think it really depends on the person,” one respondent said. “Sometimes even a smiley face or thumbs up by the right person can be really passive aggressive.”