Here’s where the problem lies 

Effective workplace communication means respecting boundaries and avoiding the Slack version of shouting at the noticeably closed door of someone on vacation. You and your team need a way to tell everyone else on Slack that you’re on leave without manually messaging them. The “away” setting probably isn’t clear enough, either — are you away from Slack? Your laptop? Desk? Country? 

Here’s how we fixed it 

Pause’s Slack Emoji feature is a subtle yet intuitive upgrade to Slack’s existing “away” feature. It automatically adds a 🌴 emoji next to your name when you’re on leave. That emoji is visible to everyone in the workspace, wherever your name appears. Oh, and it’ll stay on for as long as you’re taking time off, and disappear immediately after your leave period ends.

The next time you or a team member is on leave, let the 🌴 do the talking. 

Behind the scenes 

We pride ourselves on making software obvious. That involves building thoughtfully and doing all the heavy lifting so that, for our users, using Pause is a breeze. Here’s a glimpse at why we did what we did to make the Slack Integration feature a no-brainer. 

Use supporting platforms to make your software powerful, but also, return the favour 

Look at Slack’s “away” feature. It’s thoughtfully designed. When used well, it can become a signal of respectful work culture.

But we understood that our customers didn’t use it much because, on its own, it warranted proactive thinking and acting. Coincidentally, other than our daily time-off summary, there were no other Slack-based indicators that a Pause user was on leave.

Putting two and two together, the automatic Slack Emoji was born. We used Pause to enhance the power of a useful but tucked-away Slack feature so users get the most out of both our software and the other ones they currently use.

We’ve deployed this thinking with our nifty Google Calendar feature, too — check that out here!