20 Work-Safe Emoji for Chat and 10 to Avoid
20 safe emoji and 10 to avoid in Slack, Teams and work chats, plus how to use them with bosses versus coworkers, reaction-only tips and global-team cautions.
Whether to use emoji in a work chat is a worry for a lot of employees. Use none and you look stiff, and use the wrong ones and you look unserious. Fortunately, the emoji that work fine in work conversation are more or less settled.
This page collects 20 emoji you can use with confidence in Slack, Teams or a work group chat, and 10 to avoid. Hit the copy button next to a combo and it goes straight to your clipboard. The most reliable rule is to follow the level your own team actually uses.
20 safe emoji
Confirming, thanking, praising
The signals used most in work conversation are "got it," "thank you" and "nice work." The six below work at most companies.
- 👍 (thumbs up): Got it, sounds good, agree
- ✅ (check mark button): Done, handled
- 🙏 (folded hands): Thanks, please
- 😊 (smiling face with smiling eyes): A soft close
- 🙌 (raising hands): We all did well
- 👏 (clapping hands): Good work, congratulations
- 👍Got it
- ✅Done
- 🙏Thank you / Please
- 🙌👏Congrats on wrapping up the project
Announcements, schedules, files
Object emoji used to organize content carry no emotion, so they're easy to use even with your boss. They're especially useful for separating items in announcements or meeting notes.
- 📌 (pushpin): Pinned, important announcement
- 📎 (paperclip): Attachment
- 📅 (calendar): Schedule
- 📝 (memo): Meeting notes, summary
- 📢 (loudspeaker): Announcement
- 📊 (bar chart): Data, report
- ⏰ (alarm clock): Deadline, reminder
- ⚠️ (warning): Caution
- 📌📢At the very top of an announcement
- 📅⏰Schedule and deadline reminders
- 📎📝Attached meeting notes
- ⚠️Must-read items
Emoji that lift the mood
The six below depend on the team's mood. They're safe between coworkers, but in a conservative organization, check first whether other people use them.
- 👀 (eyes): I'm looking, checking
- 💡 (light bulb): An idea
- ☕ (hot beverage): Coffee chat, taking a break
- 🎉 (party popper): Congratulations, launch
- 🚀 (rocket): Deploy, launch, moving fast
- 🔥 (fire): Awesome, passion (depending on the team's mood)
- 👀I'm looking at it now
- 🚀🎉Congrats on the launch
- 💡I have an idea
- ☕Anyone up for coffee
🔥 is used as praise for great results, but depending on the situation it can also read as "something's on fire" or "it's urgent." In a place where urgent things really do come through, like an incident response channel, it's best to use it so it can't be confused.
10 emoji to avoid
The emoji below are common between friends but easy to misread in work conversation.
Affection or sexual undertones
- 😘 (face blowing a kiss), 🥰 (smiling face with hearts), 💋 (kiss mark): In a work relationship, showing affection can make the other person uncomfortable.
- 👅 (tongue), 🍑 (peach), 🍆 (eggplant): These are widely used in a sexual sense on the internet. Even when you're talking about fruit or vegetables, it's safer to write the words in a work conversation.
Ones that read as dismissive or sarcastic
- 💀 (skull): It leans so strongly toward "I'm dead" from laughing that it makes a serious conversation feel light.
- 🙄 (face with rolling eyes), 😒 (unamused face): They show annoyance or disapproval as is. Even if you meant it as a joke, the other person takes it as a complaint.
- 🤡 (clown face): It's used to mock a person or situation, so it's easy to be misunderstood.
- 😊Use this instead when you need a smile
- 👍🙏Confirmation and thanks instead of emotion
To your boss versus to a coworker
Even inside the same company, the standard depends on who you're sending to.
To a boss or someone senior in another department, it's safest to use no emoji, or just one 🙏 or 😊 at the end of a sentence. Stringing several face emoji together can look unserious. If your boss tends to use emoji first, matching a similar level is fine.
Between coworkers you have a bit more freedom. Mood-lifting emoji like 👀, 🙌 and 🎉 are no problem if your team commonly uses them.
- 🙏To your boss: just one at the end of a sentence
- 😊To your boss: a soft close
- 🙌🎉To a coworker: celebrating together
- 👀👍To a coworker: I saw it and I like it
If you write a proper sentence first, like "Please take a look🙏," the emoji reads as polite. On the other hand, when an emoji replaces the sentence, even the safest emoji looks half-hearted.
Tips for using them only as reactions
Slack and Teams have a feature for leaving an emoji reaction on a message. If you hesitate to put emoji in the text itself, using them only as reactions is a good approach. You can signal that you've seen something without writing a separate reply, which keeps the channel tidy.
- On an announcement, mark "I read it" with 👀 or ✅.
- When you get a request, you can report progress by leaving 👀 for "I'm looking" and ✅ for "done" when you finish.
- For good news, click 🎉 or 👏 to congratulate.
- If you leave only a reaction on a question or a request, it can look like you're dodging it. Answer in writing when a message needs an answer.
- 👀Checking
- ✅Done
- 👍Agree
- 🎉Congratulations
Some people find it curt when someone leaves only a 👍. For a long report or a piece of work that took real effort especially, it's better to choose 👏 or 🙌 instead of 👍, or to leave at least one line in reply.
With teammates abroad: watch out for 👌 and 🙏
If you work with teammates in other countries, be careful with hand emoji, because the meaning of hand gestures differs from country to country.
👌 (OK hand) reads as "good" or "OK" in English-speaking countries and Korea, but in Japan it's also used as a gesture meaning money, and in some countries such as Brazil it's taken as an insulting gesture. For confirmation, 👍 or ✅ is safer.
🙏 (folded hands) is often read as prayer first in English-speaking countries, while in Korea and Japan it means thanks or a request. If you don't want a religious feel in work conversation, writing "Thanks!" in words is cleaner.
🙂 (slightly smiling face) also needs care. In Chinese-speaking regions and some other places, this face can be read as sarcasm or a smile hiding discomfort. In Korea, too, some people take it as an awkward smile or a straight face.
- 👌English-speaking countries and Korea: good / Japan: money / some countries: rude gesture
- 🙏English-speaking countries: prayer / Korea and Japan: thanks, please
- ✅👍Safer for confirming
In a channel with people from several countries, sticking mostly to object emoji like ✅, 📌 and 📅 leaves almost no room for misunderstanding.
Last checked 2026-10-19