Employees emails and messages

God that is so infantilising and micro managed. I would hate to work somewhere people feel they have to programme other people.

Kill then with kindness. They’re obviously still feeling ashamed and embarrassed about being called out on previous behaviour. Continue to reply politely and smile and be professional when you see them. They’ll soon get over it.

Just remember they’re your employees not your friends.

We have an email communications policy that requires a greeting at the start of every email.

A new member of staff and this is her response to a performance review.

Just let her go before it becomes difficult to get rid of her.

Agree with this. There’s a fairly thin line between requiring appropriate professional behaviour and micromanaging people.

If someone is already predisposed to see your behaviour as petty and punitive this is likely to really escalate and they will not respond well. You could then find yourself in tit for tat where you are scanning their emails for evidence of insubordination. Its a bit Big Brother and it won’t end well.

I think its reasonable to expect courteous and polite behaviour, and to pick someone up if they are not displaying it, but if someone is being professional that should be enough. You don’t own their soul.

Honestly, at this point I would just let her go. The fact she only started writing like this after the performance review is petty and unprofessional. What happens if there are performance issues in the future you need to raise or a bigger issue? You can’t trust her to react professionally and I wouldn’t want to keep on somebody like that, petty drama has no place in the workplace as far as I’m concerned.

If it is just with you and not affecting work otherwise. Let it go. If they are still a bit peeved with you because you raised their serious work issues and are being a bit petty, what can you hope to achieve by raising this? It will likely peter out over time. Rise above it,and roll your eyes at their pettiness.

This sort of thing can escalate otherwise and you will find yourself complaining about everything they do, whilst everything they do is done just on the correct side of doing their job while calculated to annoy you.

Don't be the one to let a completely appropriate confrontation at work, escalate to a petty argument

Just keep an eye on them doing their actual job and raise that if it becomes an issue again, which given the staff member's behaviour sounds like it might again. Don't muddy the waters with petty stuff that does not actually matter for work. Keep any complaints strictly about how they do their job or behaviour to you that is seriously rude, or discrimination etc. Not addressing g tou in emails properly really is not in that category, however annoying it feels

I wouldn't ignore, it's your company and you can ask for politeness if that's your culture.

I sometimes find email language a bit stupid, sent "best regards" tp someone you email everyday.

That said it sounds like something has mentally shifted with this employee. I would start investing the process to dismiss them, and also keep important access away from them.

No term of address (Dear, Hi, Hello etc) before the name is rude, other than that your email is fine.

Just using name is definitely rude.

Sounds like she's being passive-aggressive but does it actually impact her performance? If not, I would simply roll my eyes on the inside and ignore it.

I am not sure I'd ignore it if it continues for weeks. A few emails then sure, everyone can have a bad day or just put in a short 1 liner. But if this is how she treats people if she's annoyed at them then you don't want that repeating across other people.
So leave it for a week or so and then I'd write back and just say "dear xxx, I've noted that you're omitting any form of Greetings from your emails. You may want to look at an auto signature or template to make it quicker if you are finding it takes too much time to type it out. "
Something along these lines anyway

As blunt and rude as this email comes across, this poster is correct in how an email was supposed to be formatted. I say “was” because no one EVER writes like this. I’ve been sending emails for 23 years in my job - to solicitors, estate agents, clients, financial institutions etc. No one has ever written an email like this.

Oh don't be ridiculous, do you understand what anonymous means?

I have to say I am just this side of polite with one particularly toxic and bullying boss. I do sign my emails off and I am icily professionally pleasant but that’s about it. I don’t and won’t pretend to like her: after the way she has behaved I think it would be undignified to pretend to like her and I find corporate sycophancy hard.

When people are unkind to me needlessly in a professional setting I find it hard to forgive them and move past it to be honest, certainly without an apology. I think pretending to be chummy with someone who has insulted and deliberately undermined you is a bit pathetic.

Are you sure you weren’t unnecessarily brutal during the performance issue period? Could you have upset her more than you realise?

Email etiquette is irrelevant here.
It is the behavioural change since the performance management that is key

They are looking to punish you for your actions and trying to use any power to do so.. It is a very immature thing to do.

I would probably evidence it and ask them if there is any reason why you have been singled out for this change. The likelihood is they will back down very quickly. By recognising it you are taking away the power that they think they have over you

Deal with it head on - set expectations that are clear. Ignoring it is setting yourself up for her pushing other boundaries. Uncomfortable conversations are a key part of management.

How on earth is thanks unprofessional?

Yeah I wouldn’t put up with it if it’s changed since having a talk. Have been in this position. It was a downward spiral of the employee not respecting management/owners. The attitude was terrible. Just really rude. Not what we’re used to with our staff, especially as everyone is super happy and we’re super flexible for family time etc. Thankfully they left after more discussions.

I think timing and length of chain counts. I’ll always put a greeting in the first message but if we’re bouncing back and forth from there it feels really weird putting ‘hi’ every time

I’d be more bothered if it’s a change in communication style that coincides with you pulling them up on the performance issues.

so many people on here saying they don’t add “hi” or “thanks” because it’s unprofessional might be okay if that’s they’re style with everyone and they’ve always been this way.

however if someone else has always said hi, or a similar greeting, or added a thanks, then abruptly stops after a performance issue has been raised it would really grate on me too OP!

however it’s not misconduct or poor performance so not much you can do. On that basis I’d be tempted to ignore and act like youve not even noticed - that’s more likely annoy them even more. I’d continue with your usual greeting style as if you’re completely oblivious.

with any luck they’re pissed off and actively looking for another job anyway

Have you provided any training to your staff on etiquette in the workplace? Never met an employer who has. Either provide the training or accept that this person is free to write their emails however they like. I would remind them that building positive relationships with coworkers is part of their contractual obligations - assuming that's in their contracts..? Also: bit weird to piss off your actual employer like this. Won't they need a reference from you at some point? A quick meeting where you make a joke about this with a different colleague could jog their memory(!)

If I'm starting a fresh email, I usually do put "Hello Fred" or "Hi all," or whatever.

If I'm replying to a mail, I'll quite often just reply, "yes, that's fine," or whatever, no greeting. It depends also on the audience, people I talk to all the time, or someone in a remote department I haven't dealt with before. I have colleagues who have their signatures set with "Regards, Mike" or whoever, do there's always a sign off, but no effort on their part. I vary mine. One colleague got, "yours apologetically" today. But again,like any communication, you need to know who your audience is and adapt accordingly.

However, if they used to do one thing and now don't, I would be asking why, especially if it's not based on any feedback that you know of.

Well i think if she previously did use greetings and after your chat hasnt, (silly, passive aggressive move of disrespect), I would print them all out and show her the timeline and ask her why she has omitted the greeting since x date. See what excuse she comes up with, watch her flounder and tell her its not acceptable and what standards of basic respect and civility you expect employees to show .........

This happened in my workplace but it was a senior figure doing it to a junior one because the senior one was blaming them for something that wasnt their fault. We did an advanced search and counted how many emails in 8 weeks with greeting, BEFORE the date of incident and how many emails in same timespan afterwards without greeting. The junior colleague sent it to the seniors managers.. ........the senior is suddenly back to including the greeting. And you can imagine, none of us have a high opinion of this senior person. This kind of poor behaviour really shows what they are made of

Yeah, it’s not ‘professionalism’ on display here but resentment.

Sounds tricky. I hope you can sort it (or get rid of her).