Women are still softening their workplace communications — and it’s hurting their productivity and career prospects
In boardrooms and Slack channels across America, a silent negotiation is taking place.
According to a recent study by the language instruction platform Preply, more than 4 in 5 of 1,000 women surveyed in the U.S. admit to “code switching,” or deliberately altering their communication style while at work. The phenomenon goes beyond the polish most employees adopt in a professional setting. For women specifically, it represents a complex balancing act, one that’s been around forever and that can have a very real impact on productivity and careers.
“Women feel compelled to soften their workplace communications with emojis, exclamation points and overly polite language,” said Nicole Baudry, director of business development at the ad agency Think Shift in Winnipeg. “This stems from women’s fear of being perceived as too harsh, intense or direct — particularly in digital communications where body language cues are absent.”
According to Preply, the biggest reason women code switch is to appear more professional, followed by expressing confidence and fitting in. Just 1 in 5 women say they change their communication style to mask their emotions, while 1 in 6 do so out of fear of judgment.
These communication adjustments manifest in several ways. The most common differences once women leave work include their using more slang (56%), more sarcasm (55%) and more profanity (53%). Nearly half report injecting more humor in their communications outside work, while 2 in 5 say they “laugh bigger” after leaving the office.
“Everyone has command of different styles of speech,” said Melissa Baerse Berk, associate linguistics professor at the University of Chicago. “Some we would use with close family and friends, others in more formal settings.” We tend to use slang, sarcasm and profanity in less formal settings, so it’s not surprising these are used less in the workplace by women, she added.
There is a crucial distinction, however: It may also be the case that women feel they need to be extra formal in the workplace to be respected by their peers, according to Berk — a sort of performative softening of communication that carries considerable costs.
For one, there’s the drain on productivity. “If you’re spending time rereading your emails and trying to figure out how to come off kind enough, it can be draining,” Berk explained, and that effort to hit just the perfect tone diverts focus from actual work.
Also concerning is the potential impact on one’s career. “Because we are constantly concerned about how we’re perceived, we end up in softer, soft skills roles — communications, human resources, marketing — whereas men, since they’re not worried about this, can climb through finance, sales, operations,” Baudry maintains.
In other takeaways from Preply’s study, women in senior roles are more likely to be told to change their tone or communication style but less likely to actually do it. Nearly two-thirds of women overall feel pressured to use a “work voice,” with one-third reporting they feel inauthentic when using it.
Baudry believes such behavior isn’t necessarily imposed by men but, rather, is largely self-imposed. “I think it’s a fear we’ve put onto ourselves,” as she put it.
Her advice to fellow female professionals? “Just send the damn message. You don’t have to contort your communication to be more digestible.”
Baudry acknowledges that a shift in the way women communicate requires broad cultural support — including celebrating women who communicate directly and creating spaces where the topic can be discussed openly.
As Berk put it: “I think recognizing that everyone has different preferences in terms of communication is important. I’m not sure the answer is to have women communicate more assertively if that doesn’t feel natural to them. Instead, we can recognize that all styles of communication are OK as long as the message is being transmitted.”