I can’t take credit for this idea, I must have seen it in my travels at some stage, and thought that is a good idea I have to pocket and replicate!

Increasingly, companies are doing work fully remote, or hybrid. It means that we are all starting to rely more and more on chat programs as a way to communicate with our colleagues.

Slack is one of the common ones that is used within corporate environments, within smaller teams and start-ups, and even within larger community groups run by volunteers.

Slack offers a bot functionality called Slackbot. Slackbot is created to automatically respond to messages that members of the workspace send in channels.

Initially, the first use I saw of Slackbot was to reply to the words “hug” or “kudos” with relevant gifs. This makes a cute and friendly alert, and especially for a word like “kudos”, it highlights the shout out that a team member was trying to give to another team member. The online equivalent of a cheer around the office.

The use I want to discuss here is how to use it to encourage inclusive language amongst your team. Often, when people use exclusive language, they aren’t doing it to be mean on purpose, it is inadvertent and they may not realise how it can be harmful to other members of the team. However, when you add it up, and normalise the use of such language, you can see how it becomes a bigger problem over time.

On the other hand, if it is always the same people calling people out, then the cries tend to get ignored – you can feel the eye-rolls through the screen.

If you program Slackbot to respond to harmful language with helpful or friendly suggestions, then it starts to normalise the replacement language, and no one has to bear the brunt of the eye-roll.

Content Warning for the following – In order to subvert harmful language, I have to list it out – so if you feel that you don’t quite have the spoons to read through it right now, please take care of yourself.

How do I get it

You can only do this if you are admin of your workspace. So if you’re not an admin – please send this post to an admin!

At the time of writing this, I couldn’t find an easy way to replicate this functionality on Microsoft Teams, so I’d love to hear from a Microsoftie if it is available – chat me on any of my channels.

Go to your Slack instance, go to Tools & Settings > Customize

You should end up in the Customize Your Workspace section of the admin dashboard. You will see a tab called Slackbot. The options within this tab are, you simply copy and paste the following into each response:

Note that if you make sure each response is in its own line, it will respond at random for any of the prompts.

When someone says	Slackbot responds
ladies	Instead of ladies, have you considered a more gender-neutral pronoun like folks? Please edit your message so it’s more inclusive of other members of this community (that includes non-binary people and other minoritised genders).
retarded retard	Have you considered a less harmful adjective instead of retard, like silly or nonsensical.
crazy	Instead of crazy, I think you mean irrational… Instead of crazy, I think you mean outrageous… Instead of crazy, I think you mean egregious… Instead of crazy, I think you mean unthinkable… Instead of crazy, I think you mean nonsensical… Instead of crazy, I think you mean incomprehensible… Instead of crazy, have you considered a less harmful adjective like ridiculous? Have you considered using a different adjective instead of crazy?
guyz guyss	It is spelt guys. But instead of guys, I think you mean team… It is spelt guys. But instead of guys, I think you mean all… It is spelt guys. But instead of guys, I think you mean pals… It is spelt guys. But instead of guys, I think you mean crew…
you guys these guys my guys those guys hey guys hi guys the guys these guys thanks guys guys?	Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *team*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *all*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *pals*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *crew*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *people*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *y’all*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *everyone*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *folk*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *biscuitheads*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *comrades*… Instead of *guys*, I think you mean *fellow humans*… Instead of *guys*, have you considered a more gender-neutral pronoun like *folks*? Have you considered using a different pronoun instead of *guys*? Because many here (including me) aren’t guys?

If you can think of any other language i’ve missed, and/or other suggestions, I’d love to hear from you. Connect with me on any of my channels!