How We Use Technology Speaks Volumes About Our Professional Ethics

Technology has taken over our lives in strange ways.  There have been so many advantages to thank the inventors for. But there are also some basic irritants that are annoying and can hamper our productivity at work, in the longer run.

Some bit of mindfulness is all that it takes to use technology in a courteous manner. You like the group messaging – agreed, but if you don’t want the whole group to comment and are addressing only one person, take the pain and go to the individual window instead. Better still; just don’t chat in work hours. I had an old friend’s reunion group. One of us was extremely serious about how his phone would sound when he was in office. People in the group would shamelessly chit and chat the whole day. Helplessly, one day, he requested we didn’t. Out came responses for him to silence his notifications. He promptly exited the group saying, “If being with you is going to be so annoying, why silence the notifications. You might not feel insulted, but then I don’t want to insult you either.”

Mail Responsibility

Be mindful when you send emails. Don’t copy people who don’t need to be in the loop, Your ‘just in case’ attitude can hamper your long term working relationships with all those who you decide to carbon copy (CC) in a mail, which might be totally irrelevant to all those marked in this field. Just because you want the horse off your back, doesn’t mean it has to be in someone else stable.

When responding to emails, avoid forwarding everything that was shared with you. Your trash doesn’t have to be someone else’s. Take some time to sanitize a forward mail, don’t send attachments with no relevance to the other.

Respond In Real-Time

Not just for technology, but it life too, responding in real-time helps makes everyone move their cheese a little more efficiently. Having a mail, tweet, WhatsApp, slack message sitting in your box could be annoying but then, not responding to tasks that need your intervention can be frustrating on the other end too. Prioritize your tasks, ask important issues to be picked on a call and then take those calls. Reduce garbage in your mailboxes that you later need to clear in one go. Let the communication keep flowing.

Silence, Silence

One golden rule of office etiquettes is to have your notifications in silent mode. Have the vibrator going for you on the phone. Avoid friend groups and keep the family immediate only on a ringer. When you use technology to your advantage, you make it work for you. You will see yourself become more efficient.

Work From Home Rule

Taking a call, going on skype or facetime- ensure your surroundings don’t sound like you are in the fish market. Your daily chores and home life does not have to be of interest to whoever is expecting complete efficiency and professionalism from you, on the other side. Find a quiet spot, a quiet room and definitely not a noisy café. How you manage your own work out of office bounds, will be entirely your headache. But it goes a long way in making you a likable co-worker and improves your working relationships in the longer run.