My go-to greeting to address a group of people has been “guys” for the past decade. It isn’t gender neutral and it definitely isn’t the most inclusive.
I conducted an informal poll among a few colleagues looking for potential replacements. We concluded that the two best candidates were “y’all” and “folks.” As saying “y’all” was not going to work for me, I decided to get to work on changing my default greeting to “folks.”
A few weeks in, I’m pleased to report some progress. I’ve probably replaced “guys” with “folks” 50% of the time. The rest is a mixed bag between catching myself after the fact and not.
I’m shooting for a 100% replacement by June.
Here’s to that.
A Learning a Day 