Is it a good idea to use emojis in your emails?

A new study has found that emojis in workplace instant messages can damage how competent and professional employees are perceived to be.

The best way to go is without them, found the University of Ottawa research – led by Erin Courtice of the School of Psychology in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa.

The study tested how emojis affect judgments of competence and appropriateness in professional settings. Participants read simulated workplace messages that varied in tone – positive, neutral or negative – and in emoji use, including none, positive emojis and negative emojis.

After each message, participants rated how professional and competent they believed the sender to be. The experimental set-up reflects the growing importance of chat tools and email in shaping day-to-day impressions of colleagues, often outside formal performance or disciplinary processes.

A previous University of Michigan study found that emojis can be used to monitor emotional health and predict work behaviours.

Plain text is king

The University of Ottawa study found “messages with no emojis were clearly the winner, making the sender appear more competent and professional.”

Positive emojis – such as smiling faces or thumbs-up icons – were not always harmful, but their benefits were limited.

“Positive emojis enhanced impressions when paired with a neutral or positive message,” suggesting they can reinforce a constructive tone when there is no underlying conflict or bad news, according to the report.

However, when emojis were added to negative messages, they tended to backfire. The researchers conclude that “positive emojis do not soften bad news or critical feedback – instead, they may create a sense of dishonesty and insincerity when used in a negative message.”

Negative emojis get thumbs down

Meanwhile, negative emojis were judged most harshly of all. The University of Ottawa team found that “negative emojis were consistently considered inappropriate for workplace communication as they made senders seem less competent, especially when the message itself was already positive or neutral.”

This suggests that even when the literal meaning of a message is clear, symbols such as angry or eye-rolling faces can undermine perceptions of judgment and reliability.

The researchers also warn that emojis do not automatically increase appropriateness, even when they match a positive message.

“Employing an emoji is not always beneficial: for example, adding a positive emoji to a positive sentence did not increase a perception of appropriateness,” the researchers state. 

Nearly half of workers in the US, UK, Germany, and Mexico believe that emojis should be banned from formal workplace communication.

Gender dynamics of messaging

The study also identified a gender effect in how messages were evaluated. The researchers found that “women judged negative messages from other women more harshly than negative messages from men, rating them as less appropriate.” This suggests that women may face narrower expectations around acceptable digital expression, particularly when communicating frustration or criticism.

Lead author Courtice stresses that emojis should not be seen as neutral additions to workplace messages.

“This study highlights the importance of being mindful about the potential impact of emojis on professional interactions,” she writes. “Emojis are not simply neutral add-ons to text messages; they can influence how others perceive us, particularly in terms of competence and appropriateness.”

The research team from the University of Ottawa – which included Megan Lawrence, Charles Collin and Isabelle Boutet – suggests future work should examine how emojis operate within broader communication patterns.

“Future research should consider how emojis function within broader communication patterns, examining outcomes such as conversation flow, rapport building, conflict resolution, and team cohesion in digital workplace environments,” they say.