Slack has without a doubt become an inevitable communication tool for most of the teams and offices that have gone remote in response to the pandemic—whether for email exchanges, text messages, or even casual team-building activities (and GIF sharing!).
Unlike email exchanges or private chat functions like Gchat or Facebook Messenger, Slack does a great job of keeping communication out in the open, allowing colleagues to keep in touch, ask questions, and share insights in a productive manner—which allows the team to get to know each other on a virtual level.
And because the way that people communicate can reflect their personalities in real life, the way you and your colleagues talk, react, and reply to messages are probably giving some hints to how you’re perceived both personally and as a performer.
Below, we asked a handful of business owners and c-suite executives to share their observations when it comes to how we navigate Slack and exactly what it says about us.
Whether you’re all over the communication tool or you avoid it as much as possible, here’s what your colleagues may be deducing over your Slack workplace game.
If you’re not one to use emojis…
“One thing I have noticed when it comes to people who do not use a lot of emojis and exclamation marks in their written communication to try and compensate for the lack of friendly affect in screen-to-screen is that these interactions tend to be the people who are least willing to try and develop interpersonal relationships with their coworkers during team meetings,” explains Sebastian Schaeffer, Co-Founder of Dofollow.io.
If you use it as a tool rather than a social app…
“Another general rule that seems to hold true is that people who are brief and to the point on Slack are almost always the most productive people on the team,” shares Schaeffer.
“If someone responds to your messages promptly but gives you mostly short, one or two word answers, these are usually the people who produce the best results.”
If your green light is always on…
Highly committed people usually exhibit proactive behavior in every aspect of their work, including something so ‘simple’ such as communicating on Slack.
“I have compared productivity results in my company with people’s activity on Slack and in our case, there is definitely a clear link between high productivity and frequent Slack use,” shares Nick Chernets, CEO of Data for SEO.
If you’re constantly sharing ideas in public channels…
According to Rex Freiberger, CEO of The Call Of, people who are more active in public Slack channels tend to be more take-charge in their work.
“They’re good independent workers, but they can motivate their team members or reports to work, as well,” Freiberger says. “They’re self-starters who rarely need oversight and generally stay on top of communication. They may try to do too much, however, and could have a problem with multitasking.”
If you avoid chiming in as much as possible…
“People who rarely speak in public channels come in one of two forms, in my experience,” says Freiberger.
“Either they just prefer working quietly and independently and check in when they need something or once they’re done, or they could potentially have issues with communication and need more oversight than they’re currently getting.”
If you’re always willing to answer questions in great depth…
“The number one thing I see in common with my most successful employees is the level of depth they put into their slack replies,” says Eropa Stein, Founder & CEO at Hyre. “Star employees will take the time to explain their thought processes and give insightful responses to open requests for feedback.”
According to Stein, the best employees are strong communicators that help give insight to employees across departments whenever questions are asked.
Even if they don’t respond right away because they must prioritize their tasks first, they help their team out to the best of their ability.
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