Workplace etiquette: courtesy at the office, in meetings and on chat

Workplace etiquette has less to do with formality than it once did. Fewer offices have dress codes, and many teams are split between home and office. But the fundamentals are unchanged: respect people’s time, attention and credit, and make shared spaces easier for everyone.

Getting it wrong is costly. Christine Porath and Christine Pearson, who polled thousands of workers over 14 years, report in Harvard Business Review that 98% had experienced uncivil behavior at work, and that by 2011 half said they were treated rudely at least once a week. Roughly half of those on the receiving end said they deliberately reduced their effort. The Society for Human Resource Management’s Civility Index found U.S. workers saw or experienced an average of 1.34 uncivil acts per day in late 2024, which SHRM estimates cost businesses $2.7 billion a day.

Meetings

Meetings grew sharply when work went remote: Microsoft found that time spent in Teams meetings more than doubled worldwide (2.5x) between February 2020 and February 2021, and the average meeting stretched from 35 to 45 minutes. A courteous meeting culture fights that drift.

• Ask whether it needs to be a meeting. A decision with one owner and a clear proposal can often be settled in writing.
• Send an agenda, even a three-line one, with the goal of the meeting stated first.
• Start and end on time. Ending five minutes early gives people time to get to their next commitment.
• Invite only people who need to be there, and share notes with those who just need to know.
• Close with owners and dates for every action, then send them in writing.
• Accept or decline invitations promptly, and give a reason if you’re declining a meeting you were expected to attend.

In the room or on the call, listen fully. Laptops and phones out of sight (unless you’re taking notes), no side conversations, and let people finish their sentences. If someone is interrupted, a simple “I’d like to hear the rest of Jae’s point” restores the floor. Video meetings have their own conventions; see our video call etiquette guide.

Chat apps: Slack, Teams and their cousins

Workplace chat feels casual, which is exactly why it causes friction. Microsoft’s 2025 data shows workers receiving 153 Teams messages per weekday on average, and being interrupted roughly every two minutes during core hours. Every message you send is an interruption to someone.

Set your status honestly (in focus time, out sick, on vacation), and respect others’ statuses. A “do not disturb” is a request, not a challenge.

Working hours and after-hours messages

Workdays are getting longer at the edges. Microsoft reports that meetings starting after 8 p.m. rose 16% year over year. Flexible schedules are a benefit, but they shouldn’t become an obligation for everyone else.

• Use scheduled send for messages written outside the recipient’s working hours.
• If you must send late, say “no need to reply until tomorrow.”
• Be mindful of time zones when scheduling; rotate inconvenient slots so the same people don’t always take the 7 a.m. call.
• Managers set the tone. If you email at midnight, your team will assume you expect replies at midnight.

Shared spaces

Credit, thanks and feedback

Few things damage working relationships faster than taking credit you didn’t earn, and few build them faster than giving credit generously. Be specific and public with praise and private with criticism.

Thanks has measurable effects. In a study by Adam Grant and Francesca Gino, described in the Harvard Gazette, 66% of people who had been thanked for their help went on to help again, compared with 32% of those who hadn’t been thanked. A sentence of recognition is cheap and powerful.

Hybrid and remote courtesy

When some people are in a room and others are remote, the remote people are at a disadvantage. Courteous hybrid teams default to the remote experience: everyone joins from their own laptop, decisions are written down, and the chat is monitored for questions. Record or summarize key meetings for people in other time zones.

Written communication carries more weight in distributed teams, so clear, accurate writing is a professional courtesy. If your typing slows you down, free step-by-step typing lessons can help, and our email etiquette guide covers structure and tone.

A few classic office questions

Collections and gifts

Contributions for a colleague’s gift should be genuinely optional and anonymous. Gifts generally flow down or across, not up; a group card for a manager is fine, but expensive individual gifts to the boss can make others feel pressured.

Small talk and personal topics

Interest in colleagues’ lives is warm; interrogation is not. Avoid questions about pay, pregnancy plans, health, religion or politics unless someone raises the subject themselves.