Words and phrases that undermine your message can kill your career. To combat this, there’s even a Chrome extension that highlights the use of words like “sorry” and phrases like “does this make sense” in an effort to encourage more confident communication–particularly in women’s messages.
But a new study from Hive, a collaboration platform, indicates that men are just as likely to use those words and phrases. The State of Workplace Gender report, which surveyed 3,000 men and women across different workspaces, found that there are almost no differences in the use of “I think,” “please,” and happy face emojis. However, men are more likely (0.64%) than women (0.07%) to say they’re sorry in a message. And when women do say sorry, they are more likely to say it to each other.
Both women and men are more likely to send direct messages to their own gender. The survey also found that men assign 20% more tasks to men, and women assign 20% more tasks to women, and respondents indicated that they’re also slightly more likely to complete work assigned to them by someone of the same gender.
By: Lycia Dishman
Source: Fast Company
CEOs are spending more time on making the business case for their environmental and social commitments, and they’re building more rigorous mechanisms for addressing thorny issues and mitigating PR risks. To avoid communications missteps, CEOs should ensure they have the organizational capabilities and tools in place to monitor and analyze emerging issues and to gauge the sentiment of key stakeholders.
The vast majority of business leaders responding to a recent survey said they’re concerned they can’t train employees quickly enough to keep up with AI and tech developments in the next three years. A similar amount said AI and other tech disruptions will require companies to rethink skills, resources and new ways of doing work.
If you were to ask a random person on the street what an HR professional does, their answer would probably be conflict resolution, or that HR folks deal with employee salaries and benefits. And while that is part of an HR professional’s responsibilities — to ensure employee safety, respect and accountability — that doesn’t even scratch the surface.