While you might think that it’s common sense to determine what is and what isn’t appropriate interaction at work, it never hurts to have a little reminder. And some things might have changed.
Dynamic Business doesn’t want to ruin your fun at work, and being mates with co-workers is a positive step towards job satisfaction. But sometimes there’s a limit to what you communicate and with whom.
1. Friending your co-workers on social media
While it may seem like a good idea in the initial throws of starting a new job to friend everyone in the company, it doesn’t actually demonstrate your openness to the world. What it does instead is open up your profile to everyone who cares to have a look at it. While you may not be stupid enough to boast about ‘chucking sickies’ or post endless amounts of photos of yourself getting drunk on the weekend, your friends might be, and that means that these things could be open to everyone at work. Be warned.
Between coworkers it might seem appropriate to leave off the Best Regards or Yours Sincerely, but be careful what you replace it with. Cheers is generally fine, or a simple Thanks. But if you want to start including ‘xxx’ or ‘Love’ in your sign off, you might start giving the wrong impression around the office about your personal availability. Remember that at some point you may need to use your office emails as evidence, of communication of a project for example, and so you don’t want them littered with kisses.
3. Replying all
Now and again the odd humorous email can be a light way to break up the day, but endless joke emails and pictures are just annoying. If you really think something is funny, send it to one person who might agree. Sending it to everyone in the company, and then consequently everyone in the company replying with their “LOL” comments, means that every employee’s inbox will be continuously pinging for the rest of the day.
4. Over-sharing
If you become firm friends with your co-workers, to the point that you’re happy to share personal life details and stories, that’s fine. But leave it outside of work. Everyone else doesn’t want to hear about your problems with your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/kids. There are some things that are fine to discuss at work, and some things that just aren’t. It’s not that you should feel you have to hide aspects of yourself, but hearing all about your latest medical procedure isn’t something everyone needs to know.
