SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR |  RSS | | REPRINT
|
Virtually Correct
April 23, 2008
Virtual etiquette means more than defining what's appropriate in a work-related e-mail message. It means understanding the expectations of co-workers enough to create a healthy, productive office environment. Helping your employees gain that understanding might be easier than you think.
By Stefanie Heiter
There is great opportunity and reward for trainers who help teams and groups define how they will work together in a virtual world. This goes far beyond simple e-mail etiquette. It involves helping people surface the assumptions they make about what are acceptable and unacceptable business practices, and then understand how this impacts their working relationships. It is your electronic body language—how an individual's interpretation of the electronic habits of others influences judgments about competence and credibility.
Training usually is preceded by an assessment that helps the trainer understand audience needs. Unfortunately, most assessments don't include questions about virtual globalness and electronic body language (that which replaces physical body language when communicating electronically), so the requirements for training in this area don’t get incorporated into the needs analysis or recommendations for rollout. Effective assessments must now look at the culture and habits created by increased e-mail volume, dispersed workforces, global teams, and communications technologies that allow constant connectedness. Training programs can then help teams agree on protocols and processes that reduce the challenges of being virtual while creating trusting, professional relationships that take full advantage of the benefits of being virtual.
Training consultancy Strategies in Play recently reviewed preliminary data collected as part of a large-scale survey on virtual communications and the unintended consequences on factors such as corporate culture, productivity, and retention.
Consider the following statements and survey responses:
1. "I think those who use outdated technology are poor performers." If you agree with this statement, you are likely to have a negative impression of someone who doesn't respond to e-mail for a day because they are away from their computer—the feeling of "I can do it so they should too." This isn't generally a conscious decision, but the reaction separates those with PDA's from those with only cell phones. Preliminary findings from the survey indicate more than 40 percent of those who responded agree with this statement.
2. "What arrives in my e-mail inbox defines my actions for the day." If you agree with this statement, it might mean you are operating in a reactive mode. As a training professional, consider how this behavior relates to individual performance goals, team tasks, and corporate strategies. Our findings indicate a whopping 70 percent of respondents somewhat agree or agree with this statement.
3. "There are clear expectations of how available people should be during nights, weekends, and vacations." If you disagree, you are susceptible to a level of stress or uncertainty that comes from not knowing if you are doing the right thing, regardless of whether you check e-mail or answer calls. This creates a certain fatigue that comes from not having down time or being able to totally refresh. Thirty-five percent of respondents disagree or strongly disagree with this statement, creating yet another avenue for training/development professionals to have tremendous impact on productivity.
4. "When in doubt, I include someone in an e-mail, rather than risk the consequences of leaving them out."
If you agree here, it means that your team or organization will likely have difficulty reducing overall e-mail volume. It does, however, provide an opportunity to help people by surfacing the unintended consequences of the "better to include" mindset such as lots of time spent "doing" e-mail, and employees feeling less accountable because they've handed off responsibility via the "CC" e-mail feature. Our research indicates more than 50 percent of respondents agree with this statement.
5. "Number of times per day I check my e-mail (including PDA/handheld)." 1-2; 3-5; 6-9; 10-12; 13+; or whenever new mail arrives. If you answered 1-2, or 3-5, you might be running the risk you are missing something critical. If you answered whenever new mail arrives, you are likely to feel you don't have enough time to get any work done. Studies show it takes the average person 12-15 minutes to regain concentration needed to work on complex or challenging tasks. So if you are breaking this concentration each time you stop to check e-mail, what does this mean for your productivity? Seize the opportunity to help people define expectations for response time and protocols for urgency. Our research indicates more than 41 percent of respondents check e-mail whenever new mail arrives.
At its core, an organization that relies on virtual communications assumes everyone shares the same standards of electronic behavior. But still waters run deep, and the currents below today's electronic communication have an undertow that can test important management assumptions. For assessment, training, and development to be effective in this environment, the process needs to help teams identify what they find rude, inappropriate, acceptable, professional, and effective. Good managers can then improve team interaction and manage the diverse standards that would otherwise be applied inconsistently across individuals, functions, organizations, geographies, and cultures.
Stefanie Heiter is a partner at Strategies in Play, and is available at stefanie.heiter@strategiesinplay.com or to www.strategiesinplay.com.
|
SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR | RSS |
|
|
| Back to Management Index |
|
|
