Get ready to revamp your Slack profile. As of today, you’ll be able to add name pronunciations, hover over profiles more easily and add “smart tags” to indicate special characteristics and areas of expertise.
People will be able to record audio of their name spoken aloud and attach it to their profile, eliminating guessing games when it comes to pronunciation, and helping to foster a more inclusive workplace. You can also pair this with the phonetic spelling of your name. Slack profiles will also now contain contact information, your position in an organization chart and an “About Me” section that can host anything from pet names to languages spoken. You’ll be able to hover over names to start huddles, calls or messages and search through profiles with “smart tags” highlighting specific criteria.
The updates are meant to let people more fully represent their “authentic self at work,” according to Slack’s blog post. “People's names have so much significance — from their ancestors, families, religions. They have such connection and bearing on their identity," Rita Kohli, associate professor and equity adviser at the University of California, Riverside told The Society for Human Resources.
Slack is the communication hub for at least 177,000 paying customers and continues to be essential for the scores of people on geographically distributed teams. Bridging the gap between remote workers is still a big question mark for productivity tools, even years into the pandemic — it’s just not as seamless as interacting in person. At least now, even if you’ve never heard your co-worker’s name spoken aloud, their Slack profile can do the work for you.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE