Team Messenger Etiquette

Show this post to your colleague who likes to send GIFs with cats and herring pie recipes to a corporate chat.

01. Remember What Is the Chat For

Hint: For work!

What are the most common team chat aims? To record somebody’s responsibility or share news for lots of people or quickly ask for advice.

Non-target team chat usage: share a meme, solve an issue between two people, discuss something personal or create a project concept with the help of 1000 messages.

02. Follow the Chat Rules

Chat rules are not recorded anywhere, they’re created with time.

Ask a person who’s going to add you what kind of communication they have. Is it common to write during non-working hours? Is it possible to flood? Is there an authentic sticker pack?

03. Mute the Chat

If it’s not a chat for urgent messages, you may and need to mute it: everyone will understand. Everything has its time: working tasks and conversations are not an exception.

04. Don’t Answer with Jokes

At least try not to. Even if you have a funny answer in your head that is not about the issue you’re discussing, but will certainly trigger a huge amount of GIFs, try to control the desire to send it. Or just send it to someone personally or to a flood chat that you might have.

05. Don’t Write After Work

It will be polite, even if there’s no rule about it. Working chats are for working time. Your question or a piece of news will wait for the next day.

Remember that non-working chats also have their own etiquette!