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It would seem that the past year should have taught most of us how to behave with colleagues in the virtual space – in Zoom, work messengers and corporate correspondence. But, alas, still unprofessional, meaningless or simply rude work letters are far from uncommon. What annoys them the most?
1. Negligence in the text
Patricia Rossi, author of Daily Etiquette, advises proofreading every letter or message before sending it.
“Your errors or typos may give the recipient the impression that you were in a hurry or that you were not taking the matter seriously enough in general. One mistake can be skipped (and forgiven), but if this happens regularly, sooner or later colleagues, partners and management will begin to doubt your professionalism and competence.
It’s not about making a mistake in the name of the recipient (this is generally unacceptable!) – even incorrectly placed punctuation marks can distort the tone of the letter.
“We all have a spell checker, so let’s use it,” advises etiquette expert Juliet Mitchell. However, negligence is not only errors, but also the absence of the necessary information in the letter: deadlines, addresses and other data. Make sure to provide it to the recipient.
2. Empty talk
“Being polite means thinking about others, their feelings, saving their time,” reminds etiquette expert Nick Layton. – This applies to both face-to-face communication and correspondence. All your communications must be respectful, clear, concise and to the point.”
Do most of us receive at least dozens of emails a day? try to make sure that the essence of the matter is immediately clear from your message to the interlocutor.
3. Abuse of the Reply All feature
Each of us happened to participate in correspondence that had nothing to do with us. So, before clicking “Reply all”, consider whether this is necessary. Moreover, you should not use general correspondence to point out a mistake to one of your colleagues – write about it in a separate personal letter.
4. Gossip
Discussing colleagues (especially in a negative way) is both impolite, unprofessional, and short-sighted from the point of view of further career development. At least because your message can be sent by mistake or intentionally to the wrong person.
5. Intemperance in expressing emotions
Not only is this against the rules of etiquette, but as with gossip, this behavior can do you a disservice: your e-mail can be forwarded to others or even take a screenshot and put it on public display. So think twice before sending a message written in hearts.
6. Violation of professional boundaries
In most cases, work correspondence should remain work, and there is no place for personal information, obscene language or obscene gifs.
“Staying within professional boundaries can be tricky, especially when we start making friends with colleagues,” explains etiquette consultant Jody Smith. – But when we write to someone about a work matter, the tone should remain as businesslike as possible. Although, of course, much depends on the corporate culture adopted in your company, on norms and expectations. Chances are, employees at a creative agency and a law firm will communicate differently with each other.”
If you are new to your current place of work, pay attention to how colleagues write letters. Notice everything: tone (formal or informal), length of messages, whom it is customary to put in a copy (open or hidden).
7. Disregard for the feelings of others
Of course, you can never be sure that the recipient of the letter will catch our intonation and read the message exactly as we would like.
“In the correspondence, our facial expressions and body language are not visible, the tone of speech is not conveyed,” recalls Rossi. “That’s why we all should write messages in the most positive and constructive way.”
Earlier we already said that in correspondence you should not “beat around the bush”, but this does not mean at all that you need to neglect the rules of politeness. In some cases, our messages can be read as directive or passive-aggressive. To avoid this, it is always better to start a letter with the name of the recipient. If your goal is to talk with the interlocutor about something unpleasant, “inconvenient”, it may be better to do this by phone, and not in correspondence.
8. Incorrect use of emoji
“Ideally, in business correspondence, it’s better to do without emoticons at all,” says Layton. “However, sometimes people use them on purpose to soften the tone of a letter or prevent double interpretation of information. Alas, things often go wrong and it only gets worse.” She does not insist on completely abandoning emoji, but, in his opinion, everything that can be expressed in words is better expressed in words.
9. Ignoring merit
A successful project is usually the result of teamwork, but it’s often a good idea to mention all the team members by name in the letter – not to mention cases where the project was handled by one person. If this is not emphasized, employees may lose a sense of belonging and that they are valued. And this is already a “sin” not just of office correspondence, but of corporate culture as a whole.