Office Etiquette: What faux pas to avoid in an Asian workplace?
updated the 14 July 2015 à 18:30The office can be a tricky place to navigate, especially if you’re new in town. Here are a few etiquette tips that will save you at the workplace.
Singapore may be very much an egalitarian society with many multi-national corporations setting up shop here. However, depending on the company culture, some workplaces can be very high context and bursting in like a bull in the proverbial china shop could cause some unintentional offense or unpleasantness.
So, if you’re new in town here are a few tips for you.
FIRST HANDSHAKE
A good firm handshake or clasp is enough for most Singaporeans. A limp handshake is bad in any context but it is not as bad as a crushing one. We’ve had the displeasure of meeting a certain hulking chef who has a propensity for bone crushing handshakes. We could barely use our forks after. No.
PUNCTUALITY
Singaporean companies take pride in punctuality especially for business meetings. Almost anything is scheduled to perfection here, but if you really are going to be late. Call and apologise profusely in advance. Usually there is a 15 minute grace period for other more trivial office meetings.
LEAVE A PAPER TRAIL
In Singapore, never take someone’s word for anything. If you’ve just had a conversation regarding certain deals or procedures, always follow up with an email referencing the conversation. Paper trails can save you whenever there’s a dispute in the office.
EMAIL BEFORE CALL
Consider this email cont’d. Here, emailing someone and calling to follow up after would be the way to go. If you go the other way around, it is likely you’ll be told to “drop them an email with the details”.
READ BETWEEN THE LINES
Being a high context society, we quite often sugar coat negative barbs to avoid offending the person or avoiding the topic entirely. So if at any point during a business proposal if you hear “We’ll think about it” or “Interesting”, you know it’s almost 80% a no go.
With this office etiquette guide, you won’t have to suffer the “You’ll never work in this town again” treatment.
Cheryl Lee
