Business Etiquette & Protocol...

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Business Etiquette

The human race communicates in numerous ways, from face-to-face conversations to phone conversations [person-to-person and person-to-answering machine or voice mail] to electronic mail, to facimiles, to beepers, and even through hand-written letters.

Pagers
1: Pagers usually are equipped with a number of alerting signals AND a vibrating mechanism. Please use the less disruptive vibration option when in a meeting or any other well-populated place. This is especially true when interviewing for employment!
2: If "on call" after official office hours, take precautionary measures when attending public functions to assure that a quick exit causes the least disruption. Whenever possible, secure an aisle or backrow seat at any public function and inform the hostess of that evening party that you may have to leave early to attend to business. Miss Manners insists that you should not even accept an invitation if you know ahead of the date that you will be "on call" and that your sudden disappearance during the event would be obvious.
3: If your pager allows for email messages, excuse yourself from your meeting or group of cohorts to reply. Nothing is more rude [except perhaps a phone conversation] than to completely ignore the business at hand as you hunt and peck an email answer. Either wait to reply or remove yourself from your present locale.

Phones
4. The landline that the caller is using may have the button pushed for speakerphone capacity. Keep your conversations clear, concise, and professional.
5. Conference calls have specific rules which can alleviate problems:
· Initially, everyone should be notified of ALL participating parties.
· Participants should declare an intent to exit if they must leave the conversation.
· Participants should acknowledge their return to the conversation.
· Conversation segments inappropriate ...