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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?

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Among the changes that the pandemic brought to your life, do your workday lunch habits look different today? Do you leave the office for lunch less often than you did prior to 2020, or do you work from home exclusively now and eat there? A recent Washington Post story by reporter Taylor Telford explored the question “What Did the Pandemic Do to Lunch?”, and we thought it’d make for an interesting discussion today. Regarding the effect on restaurants, the story noted, “It used to be a vital part of doing business, but lunch is lagging in downtown areas as workers stay home.”

Readers, we’re wondering: Does this story ring true for you? Has the pandemic changed where you eat your workday lunches — or how you connect with business contacts?

{related: 6 tips for saving money on lunch (even if you eat out all the time!)}

Here are a few excerpts from the Washington Post story to kick off our discussion:

Business lunch will never die, but it’s evolving as the reassessment of work continues: Professionals who consider lunch an essential part of doing their jobs are going out far less than they used to. Upscale restaurants in big business centers can’t count on commuters and are scaling back offerings and slashing their hours.

* * *

When workers do go into offices or are working from home, many are opting for takeout. Three-quarters of restaurant traffic is currently consumed not at the actual restaurant, or off-premises, up from 61 percent before the pandemic, according to data [from] the National Restaurant Association.

* * *

Another reason restaurants in downtown areas might find themselves lacking in lunchtime traffic is because employers are going to greater lengths to make offices attractive, tempting workers to stay on-site with high-end corporate cafeterias.

{related: our best tips for business dining etiquette}

Do tell, readers: Have your solo restaurant lunches or lunches with colleagues or people in your network switched to phone calls or Zoom/Teams calls?

If you buy lunch, are you now more likely to answer “to go” rather than “for here”?

Have restaurants near your workplace limited their hours and/or seem less busy during the lunch hour?

If you have summer associates or interns coming to your firm or company in a few weeks, have the Powers That Be changed rules on networking lunches?

And if your employer has a cafeteria, have they improved it recently?

The post Have Your Workday Lunch Habits Changed Because of the Pandemic? appeared first on Corporette.com.

Here’s a slightly odd question for today: We’ve talked a lot about task-batching, how saving up similar tasks to do all at once can save time and preserve focus. So with the rise of the hybrid workweek, let’s talk: Are you saving some tasks to do at the office, and focusing on others when you’re WFH? (To what extent does face time or “looking busy” enter into this?)

For example, I could see someone being 100% devoted to internal company messaging while working from home in order to preserve the appearance that you’re engaged and actively working. I’ve even seen TikToks where people rig a system to move their mouse around so they maintain their green “online” dot.

Obviously I would save printing or reviewing physical documents for the office… I hate phone calls in general so I could see benefits to saving that for the office, both for a “not in my space” perspective as well as “If I’m talking about work then I’m clearly being productive” perspective.

{related: how to make the most of face time at the office (CorporetteMoms)}

How about you guys? What tasks do you save for the office, and what tasks do you prefer to do at home?

Stock photo via Deposit Photos / AndrewLozovyi.

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I think most offices, at this point, have transitioned from their pandemic policies to whatever is next for the company policy — I know this can create a lot of flux! I’m curious: What is your ideal work location, if you could choose? What is your current work situation, and does it reflect your ideal?

Here are the questions:

• How has your company’s policy changed, and do you think it’s still in flux?
• Are you in the office all the time, or only some of the time?
• Do you still have your own office or cubicle, or are you hot-desking?
• If you’re remote for some or all of the time, do you prefer to WFH — or somewhere else, like a coffee shop?
• (If you live with other people, how has their situation(s) affected yours?)
• What is your ideal work location, and are you seeking a new job because of it (seeking all remote work or all in-office work?)

I’d also wonder how seniority plays into this — I’ve seen a lot of chatter about how hard it is to teach new lawyers how to be lawyers remotely, for example.

As I noted back in early 2020, also, working from home doesn’t necessarily mean working from your kitchen table. Some people prefer to go to coffee shops, libraries, or even hotel lobbies to get their work done. Having your own office, set up just for you, makes a huge difference also! Depending on your company policy, you could even become a digital nomad and live elsewhere in the country or world.

What is your ideal work location this year — office, WFH, remote, or hybrid?

Stock photo via Stencil.

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A few weeks ago readers had a mini-discussion on how to make a hybrid work situation more efficient, which I think is a great topic for this day and age. Those of you who are in the office 2-4 days a week and allowed to work from home on other days, what are your best tips to making the hybrid work, work?

Here’s the reader question:

For those of you who do a hybrid WFH situation, where you are in the office 2-3 days and home 2-3 days, do you have any tips for handling not being in the same place everyday? I really thrive on routine, and not having that makes me feel weird. I also have FOMO on what my coworkers get up to, and a brand new associate who I want to be available for. Maybe that’s ok and a hybrid thing isn’t for me, but I am really trying to wrap my head around what I know to be true – being able to work from home a couple days a week can be really great, if you make it great. And being gone a couple days a week isn’t really going to make me miss out on anything or harm my associate.

{related: our best tips for hot desking}

(First, a fun fact: as reported by the WSJ, a new study suggests that 2 in-office days a week, not 3, is the sweet spot for hybrid work.)

One reader noted the key to her success is a predictable schedule where she’s WFH on certain, preplanned days. “It’s too stressful for my brain to have to consider options and reconsider options all the time. I also try to schedule meetings for the days I’m in the office. I haven’t yet figured out what to do with things like paper files and records, which are currently all at home.”

Another reader echoed her sentiments, noting

I think it’s ideal if you have predictable days in office, and use them differently-more meetings, mentoring, and small tasks/email in the office and then use home days for focused work on bigger projects.

{related: how to be a good remote worker}

Readers also noted that for supervisor/mentoring type roles you could do telephone check-ins regularly on WFH days so they know they don’t need to save up their questions for formal meetings or in-the-office days.

Over at CorporetteMoms, we’ve rounded up advice from moms who work at home frequently, and one noted that she especially loves working from home on Thursday/Friday: “[I]t’s a nice way to start wrapping up the week, particularly when combined with ‘summer hours,’ (which run from the end of May—Sept.) that allow us to work only a half-day on Fridays.”

{related: 30 random work-from-home tips}

Similarly, when we’ve discussed how to make the most of face time at the office, we’ve shared tips such as visiting people’s desks, cubicles or offices just to check in, as well as lingering after meetings and showing up for happy hour when you can. (This is probably the one downside for choosing Friday as your WFH day!)

We’ve also rounded up mistakes to avoid when working from home over at CorporetteMoms, in part inspired by reader threads here on Corporette about things people hate about WFH culture — one of the biggest mistakes people make personally is not keeping an eye on career growth. As we noted there:

Not growing enough in your profession [is a big pitfall to avoid when WFH sometimes or always] — I recently heard a speech about how most women “fail” in their careers at least once because they turn into one-trick ponies, and I think it’s doubly hard to push for new skills or “growth” work you’re not ready for if you’re off people’s radars.

Readers, what are your thoughts — those of you who are in the office 2-4 days a week, what are your best tips to make the hybrid work situation more efficient and predictable? What are the major struggles you’re coming up against as you try to make it work, and what gaffes are you seeing colleagues and subordinates make?

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