By Jared Atchison, the co-founder of WPForms, a drag-and-drop form builder for WordPress that’s used on over 400,000 websites.

Does your company use Slack or a similar messaging system to keep teams connected and accomplish company goals?

It’s easier to build successful relationships with your colleagues when nothing stands in the way of mutual communication. Most times, mistakes occur because of a lack of contact or mixed messages. But with a communication platform like Slack, you can keep up with your co-workers and work-related tasks without a hitch. 

Slack is a collaboration tool that many remote teams use to clarify processes, delegate tasks and connect with colleagues. It provides an avenue for people to expedite their procedures and produce better results. It’s essential to understand how to communicate professionally with co-workers over Slack so you maintain productive, healthy relationships at work.

Here are a few useful tips to help you chat professionally with co-workers over Slack. 

Respond Using Threads 

Slack’s Threads feature allows users to respond to a specific comment or inquiry. This reduces the number of ongoing notifications and messages sent to the entire team instead of just those participating in the conversation. 

When people have critical tasks to complete and deadlines to meet, the last thing they need is constant notifications. They can be a huge distraction and deter others, as well as yourself, from completing your assignments on time. 

Threads are great for discussions and answering questions that need a breakdown or longer explanation. The best part is that only those actively participating in the discussion will receive alerts about new messages. It’s a win for the whole team.

Use Emojis For Quick Communication

Not every message needs a written-out answer. Sometimes, you need a quick and efficient way to respond to something or end a conversation without sounding too formal. For larger teams especially, emojis are an easy way to communicate your thoughts and feelings without everyone needing to send a message.

Although it might sound contradictory, using emojis with colleagues is a professional way to convey your feelings and ideas. Different emojis express different thoughts, which makes it easier for entire teams to communicate what they think. Don’t be afraid to use them in messages instead of typing one out if it isn’t necessary. 

Consolidate Your Message

Every time you send a separate message to someone, they receive a notification if they haven’t customized their settings. You don’t want to be that colleague who isn’t considerate of distractions and sends multiple messages at a time.

Instead, it’s important to consolidate your messages as much as you can before pressing send. This ensures that the recipient isn’t bombarded with your communications and can respond when they’re ready.

Use shift + return to create a new paragraph if you need to break up the text. It helps not to send a huge wall of text because it’s more difficult to read and takes more time to process. It also helps to add emojis and bullet points to separate paragraphs and convey a clear message.

Set A Status

Although it’s not the same as directly chatting with colleagues, setting a Slack status is still a form of communication. Depending on your position, you may need to speak to different people throughout the day. Whether you need to delegate tasks or review or create to-do lists, it’s essential to let your team know what’s going on with you.

Setting a Slack status is great for informing your co-workers about the instances you’re away from your desk, in a meeting, going on vacation and more. Instead of people inquiring about your whereabouts and wondering when they’ll get a chance to speak with you, they can easily check your status and get informed. 

Over To You

Slack is a great tool for businesses to communicate with each other and perform work tasks efficiently. But if you don’t know how to use it, you could create problems with your team. These tips are sure to help you improve your communication skills and build rapport with your co-workers. How will you improve communication over Slack?