Ten things your boss never told you
The unwritten workplace rules
If you’re new to the working environment, particularly the office environment, it can seem like a strange place. There are very few written rules, yet everyone there seems to know how it works. There are clearly certain things that you should and shouldn’t do, but how to navigate those without finding out everything the hard way?
It is far less likely today that a new joiner will stay with an organisation for their whole working life, or for a significant part of it. Far more will just join for a job, with little to no loyalty and with every intention of moving on to something bigger or better at the first opportunity that presents itself. And that’s fine as long as you know that, that’s just the direction working life is moving in now.
But this lack of a lifelong plan may mean that new recruits are less worried about their reputation because they don’t plan on sticking around long. However long you or they are with the organisation, there are many nuances and subtleties of working life that you need to understand.
Some places will have office etiquette or values – if you’re lucky, they might even be on a poster at the tea point or in the lift. But more likely, you’re expect to just ‘know’.
So to reduce the chances of having to find everything out the hard way, here’s some of the key rules, conventions and customs that you can expect to encounter in the workplace.
And if you are a manager, recruiter or a leader, these are those same unwritten rules you might want to make sure your new recruits are aware of during their induction – or better yet, before they join. Fewer embarrassing moments for you and for them.
1. Attendance expectations
Make sure you understand what your employer expects in terms of attendance, working hours and availability outside of those hours. You shouldn’t need to be available every hour of the day unless that’s explicitly part of your terms and conditions, but sometimes the culture can creep in that direction. Even if you’ve got no intention of being available at weekends, knowing that some of your colleagues are can help you be more effective (and protect your weekend).
If you can make sure that you leave everything completed by the end of the week, or if you maintain a shared file that contains progress on all your work can reduce the temptation to phone or message you when you don’t want to be contacted.
2. Know the dress code
The days of three-piece suits, ties, smart dresses and shiny shoes have pretty much gone, unless you work in the legal profession or certain parts of government. If your work doesn’t come with a uniform then it’s worth checking whether there are any red lines. Err on the side of caution to start with and be careful with anything that shows off shoulders, legs or anything else apart from hands and face.
Many workplaces are casual these days, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t certain standards. ‘Smart casual’ usually means no jeans or shorts, often means a collar, and will usually mean no loud, offensive or controversial t-shirts.
3. What you do outside work matters
If you’re planning on getting screaming drunk, fighting, getting arrested, crashing your car, appearing on TV or hosting an event, it’s likely that your employer will take an interest – and it’s possible that that interest could affect your future employability. What you do reflects on your bosses and the organisation, even if you might feel that what happens outside work stays outside work and is none of their business.
The same may well apply online – if you spend your spare time posting on forums that share extreme views; if your preferred form of porn is on the edgy side, or if you have a side hustle as an influencer, writer, creative or any kind of business, your employer might well be interested in making sure that your reputation doesn’t damage theirs and that there is no conflict of interest between what they do at work and what you do outside it.
4. Watch what you write
The company intranet is not the place to practise and test out your romantic fiction, fan fiction, hilarious poems or your Fifty Shades of Grey tribute work. Bear in mind that your use of corporate IT systems is probably monitored (which is usually lawful, because they own the system) and that anything you create is likely to be the property of the company, if you create it on their systems. So save the creative writing for when you get home, or write those great ideas in your physical notebook, not on the corporate blog.
The same applies to anything you might have to say about your colleagues – what feels like a discreet conversation on Slack or email about that really annoying person on the next bank of desks is probably being read by your IT department, and might well be getting printed, saved or forwarded (or at least, you can’t be sure that it isn’t). Save the personal beefing and sniping for outside work and in person.
5. Be really, really careful with flirting
You are only ever one misjudged or misunderstood comment away from a very uncomfortable conversation with the HR department. In any case, it’s usually not okay to date (or attempt to date) people in your team or management chain, however mutually consensual that might be.
6. Understand your status.
Hard as it might be to accept, your new employers may not yet realise how wonderful you are, and all the fabulous ways in which you are going to enrich their company. It may even be that – for now at least – they just see you as (gasp) ‘another recruit’.
Of course, they will come to understand your full value in the fullness of time and will realise how lucky they are to have you as part of their enterprise, but in the meantime it’s just possible that you have to prove yourself before you are given the respect, position and rewards that you so richly deserve. So work hard, be humble and don’t take it for granted that your bosses’ opinion of you is as high as your own.
7. Respect authority.
This doesn’t mean fawning over your bosses and never questioning anything that you’re asked to do. It does mean understanding that some people you now work with may have been doing this for years or decades. As a newer person, you have a real advantage in terms of being able to question why things are done a certain way, to be able to look at a problem with fresh eyes and objectivity.
But sometimes others will just know far more than you do. Challenge other views respectfully by all means, but when you’re doing do, think whether your view is based on anything authoritative, or is it just something you read online? Worse still, is it something you just ‘reckon’?
If you’re working anywhere even vaguely scientific or academic they will have an expectation of being able to back up the things you say – with evidence, with citations, with research. Just disagreeing with something because it doesn’t sound right to you is likely to damage your credibility if you voice it too freely or too often.
If you’re really not sure about something that’s been said or proposed, why not take someone quietly to one side and find out more about how they have reached their conclusions or proposals. Or take it away and research it yourself before you decide whether to openly challenge what you’re hearing. You may well be the best thing that has happened to the company – but sometimes you have to earn respect rather than just assuming you have it from day one.
8. Ask about everything
…and never stop asking. If you’re not sure, just check with someone who knows. A good company will assign you a buddy when you join for exactly that purpose – to tell you all the little things you need to know without you having to announce your ignorance to the entire office – but it’s always better to ask than to assume.
Even the act of asking marks you out as someone who cares – about the organisation and about how they come across. Someone for whom getting it right matters. It also shows that you care about the organisation and doing the right thing by them. So it will do your reputation no harm at all to ask as much as you can – and don’t worry if your colleagues joke about all your questions – you’re the one that’s learning and so you’re the one that’s moving forwards.
9. Your success should not come at the expense of others
Don’t climb over others to get to where you think you need to be. Trust and reputation is hard-earned and easily lost, and in the vast majority of cases your progress doesn’t need to be at the expense of others. Even in a situation where you are competing for a specific role or opportunity, you can still help your competitor and work effectively with them.
If all this makes it sounds a bit of a minefield, or less fun than you were hoping, don’t be put off – you don’t have to leave your fun or your personality at the door, you just need to watch out for avoidable, career-ending errors of judgement.
10. Be authentic
Ultimately, you’re aiming to be the best, authentic version of yourself - the real you. Don’t ‘bring your whole self to work’, just bring the good bits; and don’t be false or try and create a persona that isn’t you. A new job or a new company is a great chance to make a good first impression and to present the you that you want to be.
But it needs to actually be you, not some concocted stereotype of what you think effective looks like. False personas are not sustainable and completely underline your credibility when you inevitably and eventually get found out.
Just do your best, work hard, be proactive. Stick to the basics and get them right, every day. Over time, consistency always wins over talent and shameless self-promotion.