Taylor Telford has a piece in the Washington Post today about office workers no longer knowing how to act at work:
More than two years after employers began urging white-collar workers back to offices, Americans are still reckoning with the ripple effects of pandemic-induced disruption when it comes to workplace behavior. The years spent apart from colleagues have rusted workers’ social skills, and new ways of working have spawned a host of fresh etiquette issues.
I initially met this with my usual skepticism. Am I really supposed to believe that basic social skills atrophied in a mere year or two? I haven't gone into an office for more than 20 years, but I'm pretty sure my social skills are about the same as always (for better or worse).
But I kept reading and got interested despite myself. For example:
Workers who had substantial professional experience before the pandemic, including managers and executives, still need help adapting to hybrid and remote work, Senning said. He has been coaching leaders on best practices for such things as communicating through your calendar and deciding whether to call, text or use Slack to reach an employee.
Establishing etiquette for video meetings has also been a challenge for many firms.... “If I had a magic button that I could push that could get people to treat video meetings with 50 percent of the same level of professionalism they treat an in-person meeting, I would make a lot of HR, personnel managers, and executives very, very happy,” Senning said.
Huh. I guess I have to admit that I might be a little rusty on the fine points of not committing a faux pas by calling instead of Slacking—or presumably worse yet, emailing. And while Zoom etiquette seems fairly obvious to me—join on time, pay attention, don't jerk off while your camera is on—maybe there are details I'm not aware of. There's also this:
Richey, for instance, has noticed younger workers struggling with both verbal and nonverbal forms of communication, whether through eye contact, greetings or basic conversation. “This younger generation has been used to such an informal communication style with texting and social media,” Richey said. “It definitely has had an impact.”
Kelly Rownd, director for career readiness at North Carolina State University, said that young professionals today generally get more opportunities for skill-building than previous generations. But they’re not always experienced when it comes to the social elements: drafting emails, networking, knowing how to behave in a meeting vs. at a client dinner. Meanwhile, companies increasingly rely on colleges and universities to provide this instruction, she added.
Eye contact? We're talking about kids who have been through four years of high school and four years of college, mostly in-person. That's a lot of ordinary social interaction even if you text a lot. What the hell?
Now, as near as I can tell, business executives have been complaining forever that new hires straight out of college lack real-world skills. Which, almost by definition, they do. So maybe this is just the usual kvetching about thekidsthesedays.
Or not. I suppose I'll never know for sure.
