If your day has ever been clouded by a coworker being annoying over email or Slack, you’re not alone.
In fact, 44% of employees participating in a recent Kickresume survey said that written communication, which includes messages or emails, is a common site of workplace annoyance. Those annoyances play out in a number of ways: When asked to rank five annoying behaviors, 33% of respondents ranked credit stealing first, with micromanaging not far behind at 32%.
While 62% of employees said these bothersome behaviors occur in person, it makes sense that some of the most irritating interactions happen when we can’t see the person behind the screen, says Nathan Bowling, a professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida.
Bowling, who specializes in industrial-organizational psychology and whose research focuses on how stressful working conditions affect employees, likens rude conduct over a message or email to road rage.
Because someone can’t see the facial expressions of the person they’re communicating with, it creates a sense of anonymity, which could lead to people engaging in annoying behavior on platforms like Slack or Teams, Bowling says.
“I’m sure there’s people every day engaging in road rage and the people who do that, if they were to walk by you on the sidewalk, they probably aren’t that rude necessarily,” he says.
These small annoyances are related to the concept of incivility, which Bowling describes as “low-level aggression” that manifests as rudeness. This might look like sending a passive-aggressive email or doing something small to block someone’s goals, like regurgitating a peer’s idea as your own.
But those little moments of irritation might not be so minor, as they eventually become a burden, leading to job dissatisfaction, or physical issues, like headaches, he adds.
Some workplaces have been working on the offensive, hiring protocol schools like Beaumont Etiquette, which is based in New York City, to oversee training and onboarding for new employees. Beaumont’s founder, Myka Meier, says 2024 has been their busiest year so far.
Part of the demand stems from changes in guidelines following the Covid-19 pandemic, but everything, including annoying coworkers, becomes easier to handle with a bit of good etiquette, she says.
“It’s just showing consideration to the other people,” Meier says. “Who wouldn’t want a little bit more kindness and consideration at work? I think if you think about what is most kind or considerate and respectful to your colleagues, then that’s what you should do.”
Here are two ways to deal with annoying emails and messages, according to Bowling and Meier.
1. Voice concrete examples of annoying behavior
If your workplace is hybrid, but the annoying behavior is happening via Slack, Teams or email, try to talk to that person in real life, such as during lunch or over coffee, Meier says.
If you’re remote, you can try the same casual approach with calls, she says. Instead of broaching the topic by saying something like, “We really need to talk about something,” Meier suggests softening the conversation with informal language like, “One last thing before we jump off I wanted to address was, do you know when we’re talking virtually and this happens?”
When you do eventually bring up all the things that tick you off, make sure you have concrete examples of those occurrences, Bowling says. That way, you can effectively address the behavior, instead of attacking your coworker.
“Don’t say, ‘Oh, you’re an obnoxious person,'” he says. “Say, ‘This behavior you engaged in is stressful for me. Please don’t do that anymore.'”
2. Talk it through with your team
If you only have a feeling that a coworker has done something frustrating, but you’re unsure you’re not just imagining it, Bowling says it might be a good idea to run it past someone you trust by presenting the message or email to them.
You can something along the lines of, “What are your thoughts? Am I interpreting this wrong?”
It’s possible that you might be. People sometimes jot ideas down quickly in a message and the lack of warmth might seem rude, he says. Or your peers might have the same experience with that person, allowing you to move forward and address it with your team.
You can do this by bringing it up to a manager and express that a certain behavior has been bothering you. From there, you might ask if the team can create a standard practice to prevent those types of interactions moving forward, Meier says.
That’s something that can be done via email, which seems more formal, or in a meeting. Either way, you don’t have to call out names specifically, and can use more inclusive language like “we” or “let’s.”
“You’re not finger pointing, per se, you’re saying, ‘As a team would you be OK if we started doing XYZ to make it a little bit easier for everyone?'” Meier says. “That way it makes it almost like you’re doing it together.”
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