More than half of UK employees say their manager’s emojis make them more approachable

UNITED KINGDOM, August 2026 – Among UK employees whose manager uses emojis, 56.7% say it makes them seem more approachable, while 23.6% see it as a lapse in professionalism. Emojis have become a familiar part of workplace communication: a Slack and Duolingo survey of 9,400 hybrid employees across 11 countries found 58.0% believe emojis help them communicate more nuance with fewer words. How a manager communicates matters as well. The CIPD’s Good Work Index 2025 found employees who rate their line manager highly feel more effective at work and are less likely to consider leaving their organisation. 

New research from Careerminds UK, based on a survey of 600 UK employees, reveals how workers feel about their manager’s communication style and its impact on their own progression. 

Key findings: 

• More than half of employees (56.7%) whose manager uses emojis say they make them seem more approachable, compared with 23.6% who say it makes them appear less professional.   

• Employees whose manager uses emojis are 1.4x more likely to have been promoted in the last two years (66.9% versus 47.5%).   

• 1 in 3 UK employees (33.0%) say their manager never uses emojis.   

• Women are 1.6x more likely than men to believe their manager’s use of emojis make them seem more approachable (49.0% versus 29.7%). 

“Employees aren’t really judging the emoji itself; they’re responding to what it can signal about the way their manager communicates”, said Amanda Augustine, resident careers expert at Careerminds UK and a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC). “Approachability is about much more than adding a smiley face to a message. It’s about creating an environment where employees feel comfortable asking questions, raising concerns and having an open conversation with their manager”. 

The full research findings include: 

• Emojis signal approachability, not unprofessionalism: Among the 402 employees whose manager uses emojis, 56.7% say it makes their manager seem more approachable and 19.7% say it makes them seem more professional, compared with 23.6% who believe it makes them appear less professional. However, a 2026 University of Ottawa study reached a different conclusion, finding that messages without emojis received the highest ratings for competence. 

• Employees with emoji-using managers report higher promotion rates: Two-thirds of employees whose manager uses emojis (66.9%) say they have been promoted in the last two years, compared with 47.5% of employees whose manager never uses them. The pattern holds for both men (72.2% versus 49.6%) and women (61.1% versus 43.3%), as well as across every age group surveyed.  

• Gen Z read more warmth in workplace emojis: Almost half of employees aged 18 to 28 (47.6%) say emojis make their manager seem more approachable, compared with 26.7% of those aged 55 and over. The generational divide is even more pronounced when it comes to emoji use: 48.9% of employees aged 55 and over say their manager never uses emojis, more than double the 21.0% of 18- to 28-year-olds who say the same. Among the youngest employees, the promotion gap is also at its widest: 77.1% of those whose manager uses emojis have been promoted in the last two years, compared with 45.5% of those whose manager does not. 

• Women see warmth while men question professionalism: Nearly half of women (49.0%) say emojis make their manager seem more approachable, against 29.7% of men, a 1.6 times difference. Men are more likely to say emojis make a manager seem less professional (17.2% versus 14.0%) and considerably more likely to report a manager who never uses them (38.2% versus 26.1%). The gender split has a parallel in the academic work: the same University of Ottawa study found a small but significant effect whereby women judged negative emojis from women senders as less appropriate than men did. 

“The emoji itself isn’t really the point. What matters is what it can tell us about the relationship between a manager and their employees”, Augustine added. 

“Career progression doesn’t happen solely during a formal performance review. It is shaped by the everyday conversations employees have with their managers about their work, their goals and where they want to go next. When employees feel comfortable approaching their manager, they’re more likely to have those conversations and make their ambitions known. Emoji use may simply be one small indicator of a more informal, approachable communication style; it certainly isn’t the reason someone gets promoted. 

“For managers, the takeaway isn’t to start adding smiley faces to every message. It’s to think about how your communication style comes across to different members of your team. What feels efficient and straightforward to you can sometimes come across as distant or overly transactional to someone else. The goal is to create an environment where employees feel comfortable approaching you, whether or not an emoji ever enters the conversation. 

“The same applies to employees. If you don’t have that kind of relationship with your manager, sending more emojis isn’t going to create it. Instead, look for opportunities to have regular, informal conversations about how things are going, what you’d like to take on next and where you want your career to go”. 

Careerminds is a global workforce solutions provider delivering career transition, workforce design and talent development to organisations worldwide. Our consumer career brands extend that reach, giving individuals AI-powered career tools and coaching at every stage of the career journey. Together, we combine technology, data and human expertise to create a connected ecosystem that supports both workforce transformation and individual career success. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube. 

Amanda Augustine is the resident careers expert for Careerminds, career.io, and its suite of brands: resume.io, Jobrapido, TopInterview, Resume.ai, and others. As a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC) and a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW), she has spent more than 20 years helping professionals improve their careers and land the right job sooner. Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook. 

The research draws on a Pollfish survey of 600 UK adults in full-time employment, conducted in May 2026, examining how employees perceive their manager’s communication style alongside their own career progression by age, gender, seniority and salary. Employees were asked how their manager’s emoji use affects their perception of them, not about their own emoji use; promotion is self-reported and figures are unweighted.