Bringing back the lost art of office etiquette
Bringing back the lost art of office etiquette
After a lot of false starts, it seems like “return to the office” might actually be happening — albeit at a lower rate than before the pandemic.
Business leaders from Amazon, TikTok and even Zoom have taken a harder line on requiring in person work at least some of the time. Average office occupancy in the 10 biggest cities jumped above 50% in mid-September, according to Kastle Systems, which tracks key card swipes.
But after more than three years of heavy remote work, the shift can be an adjustment for workers. Office culture can be weird: There are the clashing personalities, the often unwritten rules about how to dress, which lunch foods are too aromatic or how much of your personal life to share.
Some companies are looking to smooth the transition by giving workers a refresher course on basic professional norms.
A recent survey of about 1500 business leaders by Resume Builder found that about 50% of companies have office etiquette training and an additional 20% planned to add it in the future.
“Think about all the college kids who started college remote, and then they got their first job remote,” said Stacie Haller, chief career advisor at Resume Builder. “Well, how are they supposed to understand work life?”
She said the classes are more common at larger employers, like the business consultancies Deloitte and KPMG, which are instituting such programs for employees. Many respondents noted concerns with younger Gen Z workers just entering the workforce, but most said they would require the training of all employees.
“Companies are realizing we need to tell people how to have conversations. That was a biggie,” said Haller. “No. 2 was dressing professionally. And No. 3 was writing professional emails. You know, it’s getting everybody on the same page.”
Such training can take many forms, said Thomas Farley, an etiquette coach known as Mister Manners who has been in high-demand lately. He gives speeches and workshops around the country at major employers from JPMorgan Chase and Walt Disney to the U.S. Army.
One of his lessons focuses on the art of the office conversation. “I recommend that people not be the conversational Debbie Downer,” he said.
Farley also warns against common conversation starters like the weather or traffic (too banal), politics (too inflammatory) or sports (too niche).
“I would stick to things that are either quirky, fun, uplifting or just outright interesting,” Farley said. He seeks out those tidbits on websites like the History Channel’s “This Day In History” website or the the National Day calendar.
Sometimes, Farley conducts exercises to work on eye contact, splitting a larger group up into pairs.
“And I give them two minutes to maintain eye contact with the person standing opposite them, which they must do without saying a word,” he said. If it sounds awkward, it is.
“It pushes people out of their comfort zone, because it’s something that we just simply don’t do,” Farley said.
Especially if your comfort zone and workplace the last few years has been your own home, where you can wear sweatpants alone and microwave all the leftover curry you want.
There are some workers who have never known anything else, like Montoya Thomas, a recent college graduate in Houston who is currently interviewing for in-person jobs in cybersecurity. She knows she should dress to impress, but she doesn’t want to overdo it, knowing the looser dress requirements of the tech industry.
“I did like business casual,” said Thomas. “So I don’t know if that will be OK in the office, or would I have to, like fully dress up?”
Thomas grew up in the foster system. She’s worked in restaurants and bars, but never an office. And she completed college and technical training almost entirely online.
“And then you go outside, like, ‘Whoa, what do I say? And did I say the right thing?’ And now you’re overthinking the conversation and everything,” said Thomas.
The two-minute eye contact challenge or having to click through yet another stock-footage-filled training video may not sound like a good time. But for Thomas, getting explicit answers from employers about what they expect — in a world where workplace norms are all over the place — would be a big relief. Even if it is a little awkward.
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