There are plenty of office etiquette lessons every employee should be cognizant of. From spreading too much gossip to talking too loudly around other co-workers, there are a host of mistakes that do nothing more than slow down everyone's day. See which mistakes made the list and what you can do to keep them from happening at your company.

1. Office
Etiquette
Mistakes
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2. What’s the
worst office
etiquette you’ve
experienced?

3. Was it a co-worker encroaching
on your personal space?

4. Or was it excessive grooming…

5. …At the lunch table?

6. There are plenty of office etiquette
blunders that disrupt productivity.

7. And productivity drop-offs are no
laughing matter.

8. The latest Gallup research shows
that employee engagement among
the U.S. workforce is hovering
around 30%.

9. 7 out of 10 employees
struggle to keep focused.

10. And office etiquette breaches are
just one of many reasons for
employee disengagement.

11. So without further ado, let’s look at
the top 10 office etiquette blunders…

12. …And what you can do to stop them.

17. HR Magazine once estimated that employee
tardiness cost U.S. companies over $3 billion
dollars each year – and that was back in 2003!!

18. OK, so what can you do?

19. Regulate better.

20. Make stricter meeting times
and be more vocal about
everyone in the meeting
showing up 5 minutes early.

21. Train managers – or whoever’s in
charge of each meeting – to develop
meetings with more urgency.

22. Send agendas out well before the
meeting so employees can be on
the same page.

24. Every office has a few employees
who are just too eager to learn
about everyone else’s daily business.

25. Simple interruptions are OK in
small doses.

26. Unless it becomes a pattern.

27. Mitigate the problem
with an off-the-shelf course
on valuing time.

29. Here are some of the smelliest foods
you should NOT bring for lunch.

30. Tuna Fish Sandwich

31. Or any fish, really

32. Popcorn

33. Garlic

34. Bacon

35. Steamed

36. Nothing against the food, it’s just
you need to be mindful of other
employees eating around you.

38. Absenteeism, whether that’s due to
an illness or to the costs of disability
and workers’ compensation,
costs U.S. businesses more than
$576 billion dollars a year.
http://www.standard.com/eforms/16541.pdf

39. From that amount,
nearly $227 billion is said
to be “presenteeism”
– employees who
show up to work
sick but their
illness prevents
them from
working
effectively.

40. The odds of that ailing employee
fulfilling his or her duties in a timely
and efficient manner are very low.

41. Not to mention…

42. It puts other employees at risk of catching that
person’s illness.

43. Which is why companies must be
more transparent with their staff and
communicate the health and safety
concerns of what happens when sick
employees roam the cubicles.

44. Train them on best practices of
notifying the company of their illness.

45. Or create a course around the
benefits of telecommuting,
especially if it’s an extended illness
(or accident) to help alleviate the
employee’s concern of not being in
the office to work.

47. In our recent eBook on “How to Manage
Workplace Distractions,” we brought up a
recent poll that pegged noisy co-workers as
the number one nuisance to other employees
getting things done.
Nearly 63% vouched for that.
The hardest part about asking a loud
employee to quiet down is our fear of being
perceived as rude by the offender.

48. So let’s go over some quick ways to
approach this issue.

49. Be respectful. Never be aggressive with
how you ask them to tone it down.

50. Don’t let the issue linger. Tell them
face to face the instant it bothers
you.

51. That last tip’s especially important
because you don’t want to find yourself
in the next no-no…

53. “I heard Walt’s getting promoted. What do you think about that?”
“I think David got the account because Glen likes him better than me.”
“I hear those two might be dating? What have you heard?”
“The new guy. I don’t know about him.”
“Jessie’s always sick.”
“I heard they might lay off some of the staff.”
“I heard Ned complaining the other day about so and so.”
“Man, she had the music up so loud. Did it bother you?”

54. A study from the University of Amsterdam
concluded that 90% of casual office
conversation is gossip.
And researchers at the Georgia Institute of
Technology say that around 15% of emails
passed around the office are gossip.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-gender-ourselves/201304/navigating-the-perils-office-gossip

55. There is the argument that gossip is
a way co-workers bond with one
another, but in all fairness, certain
topics could be alienating others in
the process.

56. So if you don’t have
anything nice to say, don’t
say anything at all.

57. Avoid the pitfalls of gossip and
refresh your employees on how
certain secrets or stories could
be offensive to those working
around you.

59. There’s no need to leave a voicemail
that’s more than a minute long.
Any voicemail from one employee to
the next that stretches past a minute
is unproductive.

60. Always email, or send a quick
text if it’s truly urgent business
and you know the employee is away
from their desk.

62. Thinking outside of the workplace for
just a moment:
According to the Pew Institute,
the number of text messages
sent monthly in the U.S. surged
from 14 billion back in 2000 all the
way to 188 billion in 2010.
http://techland.time.com/2012/08/16/we-never-talk-anymore-the-problem-with-text-messaging/

63. Does that mean your employees
are sending nearly a billion texts
per month?

64. No.
Well, definitely
not in the
billions, or
millions for that
matter.

65. However, too much texting can be
disruptive to others around you.

66. If the phone isn’t set to
“Silent,” others will hear
whatever noise your
phone makes for every
incoming message.

67. Just know there’s a time and a place
to communicate outside of work.
Teach your employees to respect
the sounds of silence and keep their
texting and social media browsing
to a minimum.

69. “Oh, yeah I can
top that!”
One-Uppers
aren’t
personalities that
employees will
put up with for
long.

70. You need team players.

71. Being a team player means being
able to celebrate the wins of others
and knowing the difference between
healthy & cutthroat competition.

72. It’s collaborating efficiently and
putting aside the trivialities of work
– like office etiquette blunders – in
favor of higher productivity and
better employee relationships.

73. There is hope.
Most of these behaviors can be
changed or at least minimized.
And we can help.

74. See how our knowledge sharing
platform, Thinkzoom, can help with
better communication and
productivity today.
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