Are YOUR emails offending your colleagues?
Are YOUR emails offending your colleagues? The most passive aggressive greetings and sign-offs revealed
- American e-learning app Preply studied data from more than 1,000 workers
- READ MORE: Why NOBODY should be using the ‘thumbs up’ emoji in 2022
Office workers have revealed what they consider to be the most savage ways to start and end emails.
Despite good intentions you may have been inadvertantly offending your colleagues by using ‘hiya’, no greeting at all or ending an email with ‘respectfully.’
A study compiled by American e-learning app Preply revealed the most popular email greetings and sign offs, as well as those people perceived to be the most brutal.
Respondents said that they don’t like an email to start with their name and a colon, or finished with ‘respectfully’ or ‘cheers’.
They also listed the words and phrases that come across as ‘uptight’, such as ending an email with ‘kind regards’.
How you open and close your emails could make you look passive aggressive towards your colleagues, according to a survey (stock image)
The preferred way to start in an email is a simple ‘Hi’ followed by the person’s name, or ‘hi everyone’ for a group, and closing with a ‘thank you’.
The study, backed by data compiled from more than 1,000 workers, found that almost 50 per cent admitted they could tell a co-worker’s mood by their chosen greetings and sign-offs.
A further 91 per cent said they believed people they worked with were sometimes passive-aggressive over email.
Most savage email greetings
1. No greeting
2. Hiya
3. Karen:
4. Hiya Karen,
5. Karen,
Most savage email sign-offs
1. No sign off
2. Just sign your name
3. Thanks in advance
4. Respectfully
5. Cheers
Most uptight email greetings
1. Dear Karen,
2. Greetings Karen
3. Greetings
4. Karen:
5. No greeting
Most uptight email sign offs
1. Respectfully
2. Kind regards
3. Sincerely
4. No sign off
5. Regards
The survey also revealed that Gen Z were most likely to tweak their usual greetings and sign-offs to show that they were frustrated.
So what are the most brutal ways to start and sign-off from a work email? Using the name “Karen” as a filler, here’s what Femail has learned about the opening and closing lines of emails.
More than half thought using the word ‘everyone’ was the best way to address people in a group email, while comparatively just 1 per cent said the word ‘gang’ was the best way to start an email.
Other aspects of email etiquette proved divisive, with more than 42 per cent saying tht emojis are never appropriate in work communications – although that means that more than half don’t mind them, so it’s a bit of a minefield.
Although the reasons weren’t given, there was a clearer result for addendums like ‘Sent from my phone’, which 51 per cent of people want abolished.
And 65 per cent said they wished people would stop using: ‘Sent from my phone, please excuse typos’ to round off their messages.
It comes after people were urged to stop using the thumbs up emoji because it can be seen as passive aggressive and even confrontational, according to Gen Z who claim they feel attacked whenever it is used.
Whether the chat is informal, between friends or at work the icon appears to have a very different, ‘rude’ meaning for the younger generation.
A 24-year-old on Reddit summed up the Gen Z argument, saying it is best ‘never used in any situation’ as it is ‘hurtful’.
‘No one my age in the office does it, but the Gen X people always do it. Took me a bit to adjust and get [it] out of my head that it means they’re mad at me,’ he added.
Others agreed it is bad form, especially at work where it can make the team appear unfriendly and unaccommodating.
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