best foot forward - Association of Accounting Technicians

Sharpen
up your
smartphone
etiquette
With the unexpected help of several car-driving dogs 1 , Martin Russell examines how we can
avoid accidental bad business behaviour when using our smartphones.
Are you fully up to speed with smartphone
etiquette? Or are you and your staff at risk
of slipping up and accidentally delivering a
rude or pretty poor impression of your
great business?
Imagine you’re at a party to celebrate your
friend’s dog winning The Best Car-Driving
Dog Competition 2013. You’ve fallen into
conversation with an extremely
knowledgeable, witty and entertaining
guest. You’re both happily exchanging
anecdotes about the most effective methods
of teaching a dog to drive when – all of a
sudden – another guest muscles in on your
private chat, completely ignores you, and
then loudly steers the conversation towards
the completely ridiculous topic of cats
driving buses!
How rude, you would rightly think.
What bad manners and uncouth behaviour!
It’s certainly not something you would do
yourself. Or is it?
This kind of anti-social behaviour is strangely
prolific within professional business
environments, even though it’s often not
intentional. But checking your email on the
phone while having a coffee with a business
colleague, or taking a call during a meeting or
while in the middle of a work conversation,
are common examples of poor phone
etiquette. Here are the basic rules to follow if
you want to avoid accidental bad behaviour
with your smartphone.
The basics
You won’t always be able to answer your
phone. If you’re right in the middle of a
driving lesson with an enthusiastic Golden
Retriever, it would be terribly impolite and
probably quite dangerous to drop everything
just for the sake of taking a call. So, ensure
that you have recorded a reassuringly
professional and business-like voicemail
message to hold the fort during those
moments, and try to return any missed calls
as swiftly possible.
Ever tried to send a text message or email
from your phone while in a hurry or on
the move? I’m sure we’ve all been caught
out by embarrassing spelling mistakes or
painful autocorrect howlers! When your brisk
typing activity is related to business, try to
take that extra moment to fully review your
message before hitting the SEND button.
If you do make an accidental error, make
sure that you follow this up as quickly as
possible with a sincere – and thoroughly
spellchecked – apology!
Getting smarter in the office
Silencing your smartphone during a
crucial business meeting may seem like
a perfectly natural and obvious move for
the courteous business professional. But
it’s surprising just how many people
completely overlook such a basic rule of
smartphone etiquette.
Ensure that you have
recorded a reassuringly
professional and
business-like voicemail
message to hold the fort.
If you’re in a crucial meeting it’s polite to
silence your phone and avoid any external
interruptions. Simply setting your mobile
phone to vibrate is not enough, as the sound
of a vibrating phone on a tabletop is just as
intrusive and annoying as a terrible ringtone!
At the very least, your smartphone needs to
be switched to silent when you’re
participating in a business meeting and put
out of sight, and other attendees should be
encouraged to follow your lead. For complete
peace of mind, phones should ideally be
switched off altogether until the close of
the meeting.
It’s also worth bearing in mind the impact on
office productivity just from keeping your
mobile phone in plain view. If you or your
staff members really must keep your phones
switched on all day, do put them out of sight.
The last thing you want is an office full of
distracted team members checking their
phones every two minutes throughout the
working day!
18 accounting technician April 2013