’Emotional Overhead’ Costs Businesses Valuable Time & Productivity

As the modern workplace becomes increasingly digital, a new study by Atlassian, a provider of team collaboration software, reveals more than a third of the workforce is losing over 40 hours a year trying to decode and interpret what their colleagues are trying to say - essentially equating to a full work week lost.

Atlassian surveyed 10,000 knowledge workers across India, US, Australia, Germany and France, for research which highlighted the hidden costs of miscommunication in today's digital-first work environment.

Molly Sands, Head of Teamwork Lab, Atlassian said, "This is what we call ‘Emotional overhead’, the wasted time and emotional turmoil caused by unclear or ambiguous communication. This poses a serious challenge for businesses. In the time that knowledge workers are wondering what their colleagues mean to say or what their manager wants from them, they could be doing mission critical work.”

Despite the distributed nature of modern work, email remains the tool of choice for many respondents, with 93 per cent of workers regularly relying on written communication tools like email and instant messaging. And, yet 61 per cent of workers also admit that written communication is most susceptible to miscommunication, highlighting the need for greater clarity and intentionality in digital messaging.

“Written communication is both really important and really hard to get right. Without precise, expressive writing it can be hard to know what’s important, how urgent something is, or how your colleagues feel. With so much work happening online today, we can’t always rely on body language and tone of voice to convey meaning,” says Sands. “Teams need to communicate with thoughtfulness, humanity, and intention. The emotional side of communication must come through - even in the workplace.”

When teams communicate with emotion, workers are 3x more likely to be highly productive. In fact, when emojis are an important part of company culture, 78 per cent of respondents admit they’re more likely to read a chat message with emojis or open an email if there’s one in the subject line.

The research also revealed 65 per cent of workers surveyed used emojis to help convey their intended tone or set the vibe. Unsurprisingly, there’s a generational split here with 88 per cent of Gen Z workers saying emojis are helpful when communicating with colleagues, while only 49 per cent of Boomers agree. This difference is also evident in how emoji use impacts motivation, with 68 per cent of Gen Z feeling more motivated when their messages receive emoji reactions.

To round out the study, Atlassian looked at how high-performing teams use written communication and found a number of common threads. The most productive teams:

Are less likely to use email as the default for communicating

Prefer written communication, especially when clarity is the priority

Are encouraged to express emotion at work and feel connected to each other

Are more likely to work in environments where emojis are a part of the company culture

As a result, these teams waste less time trying to understand written messages or figuring out what their manager wants. In other words, their emotional overhead is very low.