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We haven't talked about women and work email in a while — and it occurred to me that we really haven't discussed all the other forms of written and online communication in the working world. So, what are your thoughts on work communication etiquette in 2023? What rules have you established to make your work communication reflect your personal brand (e.g., tone? grammar?), and what rules have you established for purposes of work-life boundaries?
So, some questions for everyone:
- In work email, what is your preferred signoff? When do you use last names and honorifics vs. first names? Do you have rules about when to CC vs. BCC someone? How do you pay attention to tone in your emails, if at all? (Do you have personal rules for when you check emails, or which emails you get notifications for on your screen or phone?)
- In messages on MS Teams, Slack, or other dedicated messaging apps, how proper is your grammar, capitalization, and spelling? Are you a fan of emojis or gifs? Do you feel like there's an etiquette around @-ing someone to bring them into the conversation, or about silencing your notifications in a way that is obvious to your coworkers? In general, do you prefer to be “always available” via messaging apps, or do you have set times each day when you check to see new conversations and weigh in on older ones?
- Text messages and work-related communications: Do you do it, and if so how often? (Does it matter if you have a dedicated phone for work-related communiques?) How proper is your grammar, etc., in texting? Group texts: yea or nay?
- (related: in Zooms and video communications, do you always have your camera on? How proper is your grammar, etc., in private DMs with coworkers as well as when asking a written question or giving a general statement?)
(And for all of this: Do you notice any sort of divide among your coworkers, bosses, and subordinates, whether generational or otherwise?)
My Rules around Work Communications
For my own $.02, I feel like a lot of these work communications come down to boundaries — but also office culture!
For emails, I keep seeing the meme (and relating to it hard) about how “I have said something serious, so I am putting a period. But we're friendly so I'm going to follow it with an exclamation! Signing off in the friendliest possible way, xx.” So I still do feel weird about tone, but maybe that's me. (My go-to signoff is generally “Best,” but a lot of times work-related emails are without greetings or signoffs these days.)
We at Corporette use Slack, and I don't have too many rules around it — I use proper grammar sometimes but I frequently just use lowercase thoughts. I do like emojis for tone (and yes, I totally overuse the sideways laughing emoji face), but I'll only use a gif if I'm thinking of something very specific and can find it quickly.
For text messages, I've always held that at the farthest distance from me for work-life boundaries — I have texted with coworkers, even back in my lawyer days, but for work-related things I prefer to keep communications relatively minimal. I also feel like text messages should have a measure of urgency (but obviously not as much as an actual phone call).
For Zooms, if I'm one of many people on a call, then I'll usually turn my camera off if possible — if and when I write anything in the chat, it tends to be more on the casual side.
Readers, how about you? What are your thoughts on the etiquette around work communication these days? What rules have you established to make your work communication reflect your personal brand (e.g., tone? grammar?), and what rules have you established for purposes of work-life boundaries?
Anon
I don’t worry about a “personal brand” in work communications, although maybe I should. My goals are to be professional, reasonable, and kind, i.e. the kind of email I prefer to receive from my co-workers.
Anonymous
But that is a personal brand
Anonymous
I use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation in all work communications regardless of the manner of the communication. I do find typos in texts and emails I send via phone, mostly because of odd autocorrections but sometimes because of carelessness and sometimes because I draft them when not wearing glasses.
One rule I have set for myself is that it is fine to send emails at any time of day, but in the absence of urgency, I schedule delivery of after-hours emails for first thing in the morning. This is especially true if I am asking a colleague or report to do something that is not urgent, as I do not want to create a culture in which people feel they must respond to me immediately after hours just because I choose to work, say, late at night. I also find emails sent after hours can sometimes get lost in the mix, as people read them, ignore them/withhold the response in the moment, and forget about them the next day. I do this myself. I really wish others would implement the same rule.
Anonymous
+1 to setting up the delayed email delivery to the next morning if I had to work late at night or on the weekends to set a good example for my team.
Anon
I need to be better about using the scheduled delivery option. Thank you for the reminder.
Anonymous
This reminds me of a previous discussion here about how it’s normal to start a slack/Team convo with just a “hi” at sole places. So glad it is not the norm at my company or with clients/vendors for me.
Signed,
An “Elder” Millennial
Anonymous
This would drive me out of my mind!!
Anonymous
Hah! Same! Millennial here and so happy my company doesn’t do the hi thing either.
There is comedian (? content producer?) on TT/IG who does videos of different generations in the corporate workplace and he has one of boomers vs Gen X vs millennials vs Gen Z responding to the “hi”.
I think he’s spot on with the millennial response
Anonymous
Oh me too! I have never worked somewhere that’s the norm, but I’ll admit that I find it so irritating that I will delay responding to people who do that. I’m not just being a jerk – I’d like to know if the Slack is something time consuming or quick before I interrupt what I’m doing to reply.
ManagementConsultant
I’m an elder Millennial too (born in 1985) and not sure I follow… how else do you start a chat if not with “hi”?
Unsub
I think they are referring to sending a solo “hi” and waiting for a response before sending the context of a message. If you do that to me, you’re in for a long wait.
TGIalmostF
I think what this thread is referring to is someone who only writes, “Hi,” and waits for the person to reply before telling them why they are writing. If I recall correctly, a poster previously wrote about a direct report or colleague who did that and when the poster was too busy to respond, the person would later say that they tried to contact the poster, who wrote that they had no idea that the message was time sensitive because all the person wrote was “Hi” instead of writing what they needed.
Anna
Same, I do not think it’s normal to expect a response to a ‘hi’ at the workplace. I however do respond reluctantly with ‘hello’.
A Millennial.
Anon
If you are going out of your way for me or did a favor, I will send the appropriate “I know its a big ask” or “you are appreciated.” Other than that, my tone is Pittsburgh with the people who I work with on a regular basis. “Did you get that that report?” “Can you please set up call with such and such?” Personally, I don’t actually appreciate all the how was your weekend and ingratiating thank yous from people who I interact with regularily. Don’t got the time!
Susan Riddell
I am a little over the top with proper grammar. I use the Grammarly app for most of my communications. It checks grammar, spelling and can also help re-write for a desired tone. I always want my communications to be friendly and clear.
I definitely text with co-workers who prefer that method, but generally I try to keep all my IM’s on Slack since it’s searchable and shareable.