The biggest challenge to remote working is being contactable. The simple checklist below is the Full of Etiquette way of reminding you of basic etiquette that may make life easier for everyone when working from home, using a phone and remaining contactable.
01. Answer the Phone: Cut the excuses, crank up the volume if you have to and answer the piece of steel and plastic. There isn’t anything more aggravating than calling during office hours to find that the phone is not answered. Don’t be one of the reasons that the boss wants people back in office sooner than it is safe for everyone’s health.
02. Avoid Calling After Hours: Just because people are working from home does not mean they have nothing else to do but office work. Unless you know the person is a work freak like you, avoid calling after hours.
03. Schedule Times for Calls: When people work remotely though you cannot see, they may actually be busy (or at least let’s hope they are busy working). If you need to discuss something at length, tell them what you wish to discuss and schedule a time.
04. Stay Focused: If you need to keep ringing off and calling back or keep putting the other person on hold, you would be wasting their time. In spite of scheduling the call well in advance, if an unexpected emergency has occurred, tell them that you need to reschedule without dwindling.
05. Refrain from Looping them into Personal Conversations: When the ‘chuun paan’ guy comes along, don’t have a conversation about the ‘kimbula banis’ with the delivery guy and your colleague on the phone in one go. The same applies to conversations with your spouse or family members; leave those for after the office call.
If you really need to speak to or respond to a family member, ask for moment’s time from your colleague, put him/her on hold, have a quick conversation of less than a minute or two and return to the call.
06. Always Call Back: Check your phone carefully for calls and text messages that may have been missed and return the calls and respond to the messages.
Make remote working work and show that you are a responsible employee by adhering to the above daily. Sticking to these throughout is essential – every now and then will not help.
Till I return with ‘Full of Etiquette’ next week, stay safe!
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Praveeni Jayasekera is the Founder and Editor of fullofetiquette.com
;she is a regular advocate on the subject. She is an ACMA, CGMA; holds a BSc. Economics and Management; PG in IT and Diploma in Social Sciences. She is employed full time in the capacity of Chief Operating Officer at CL Synergy (Private) Limited; a Sri Lankan freight forwarding company. She is an ardent fan of the written word and has compiled content for numerous websites for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes, corporate profiles and blogs. She has experience in training corporate professionals on customer service and business etiquette. She conducts coaching sessions on etiquette for school children every now and then.
