Report: Professional skills lag in post-Covid workplace

A changing work environment and declining interpersonal skills are combining to create headaches in the workplace—and organizations are responding with training programs designed to create a more professional, respectful office culture, according to a recent ResumeBuilder.com survey.

The company analyzed responses from more than 1,000 business leaders across a range of industries—including warehousing and distribution, transportation, and manufacturing—and found that 45% are responding by providing office etiquette classes for employees, with roughly 20% saying they plan to implement such classes by 2024. About a quarter of respondents said they have no plans to offer etiquette classes, and 10% said they were unaware of their company’s plans.

Three years of remote or hybrid work and school are at the root of the problem.

“In addition to experienced employees having to readjust to in-person work, newcomers to the job market seem to be having a hard time adjusting after years of Covid-related disruptions,” according to the survey. “Some colleges and companies are even offering courses on professionalism to Gen Z workers and new college grads to try to bridge the gap.”

Among the biggest problems organizations are facing: inappropriate dress and communication. The top three skills companies say they will address in their office etiquette classes are: making polite conversation (78%), dressing professionally (75%), and writing professional emails (69%). Anecdotally, respondents said workers need help understanding that certain discussion topics are discouraged in the workplace—they mentioned religion and politics in particular—and that it’s important to take others’ beliefs into consideration, and to treat people “equally and fairly.”

ResumeBuilder.com’s Stacie Haller said the situation isn’t a big surprise given the social changes of the past few years.

“In general, this was coming,” said Haller, the company’s chief career advisor. “People were struggling with etiquette just working remotely. Managers struggled with how to manage remotely. So we went through a crash etiquette adjustment. And now, [the workplace] is level-setting to ‘this is how we’re all going to work together.’

“It’s about how we all want to interact, remotely or in the office. Everything is changing so quickly, people want to make sure we continue to progress.”

Sixty-percent of respondents said they will offer etiquette classes to all employees, and about 20% said they will offer them to specific employees, with recent college graduates and members of Gen Z—those between 18 and 27 years old—as the primary group. Haller added that most respondents work for larger companies—those with 500 or more employees—and said she hopes smaller companies will follow suit.

Of those companies offering workplace etiquette training, nearly 100% said the classes have been successful, a factor Haller says bodes well for the future of work because it gives companies “an opportunity to build their internal culture.”

She added that there was little difference across the vertical industries represented in the survey.

“There is not a measurable difference,” Haller said. “If Gen Z is working in any [office] environment wearing gym shorts, the company is going to take action.”