Coastal Services Center

The poll wasn't very scientific, but the results were immediate and helpful.

Employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center were asked for "examples of good and bad workplace communication practices." The e-mailed responses were swift, the feelings were strong, and the replies came from all sectors of the organization. It was almost as if the staff was just waiting to be asked.

Most of the comments amounted to frustration with what could be considered minor lapses of etiquette. But by making these concerns known, the Center hopes to improve communication skills and increase the general level of satisfaction in the workplace.

The following list of tips was compiled to capture the most frequently mentioned concerns and suggestions. The Center encourages other organizations to try similar experiments with their employees to see what issues they might uncover.

Voice Mail

1. State your phone number slowly. Give your name and phone number at the beginning of the message and again at the end. This was the most frequently mentioned item and a strong source of irritation to many.
2. State the reason for your call, but don't ramble. Voice mails should be short and to the point. Strive for a few sentences at most.
3. If you are out of the office for a day or more, state this on your voice mail message. The same is true for your e-mail account. Let people know when they can expect to hear from you.
4. Leave the date and time of your call. Not everyone has this automatic feature on his or her voice mail system.

E-Mail

1. Automatically incorporate contact information into each e-mail. Does your name, phone number, place of business, and address appear at the end of each e-mail?
2. Use the subject line wisely, and use it each time. For people who get lots of e-mail, "Meeting" doesn't say much. Can you put something in the subject line that distinguishes your message from others?
3. Don't use "reply to all" unnecessarily. Do all the e-mail recipients really need to copy everyone on the list as they say thank you or make some small comment? Does everyone really need to know when you are on vacation?
4. Don't be overly casual. While you might know what the electronic messaging shorthand means, does everyone? In your quest to be efficient, are your e-mails hard to understand? Several people mentioned the need for proper grammar and punctuation to make e-mail readily understandable.

Meetings

1. Start on time, end on time. Everyone's time is valuable. Starting and ending according to the schedule is respectful to all in attendance. Bosses should remember this rule during staff meetings, since late or long meetings seem to be a common occurrence.
2. Don't go acronym crazy. This is true for PowerPoint slides and the spoken word. Remember, not everyone is a member of your particular acronym club.