Monzo, a British neobank loved by millennials, has banned its employees from using terms like “blacklist,” “elephant in the room,” and “hey guys” in pursuit of “openness and inclusivity.”
The banking giant, which has over 40,000 people open an account every week, released a “tone of voice” guide that instructs its employees on the company’s vernacular.
The guide itself is unbearably “millennial” in a variety of ways: it offers advice on emoji usage, instructs against using formal words, and strives to craft a tone that’s “open, inclusive and welcoming to everyone.”
And it also takes a deep dive into censorship.
The guide cautions against employees saying “hey guys”:
“For example, it’s pretty common to address a group of people as ‘guys’, even if there are women in the group — but we think ‘hey folks’, ‘hello everyone’ or ‘hey y’all’ is more inclusive.”
It also instructs employees to not use terms such as “whitelist” and “blacklist” because according to Monzo, “the origin of these terms, with white being seen as ‘good’ and black being seen as ‘bad.”
“Colloquial expressions and idioms” also have no place in the company’s lingo as they “might be harder for people from different cultures, or people with English as a second language, to understand.”
Ironically, Monzo can’t even take their own advice: the “overview” section header is “The Monzo Tone In a Nutshell.”
