To think poor communication skills in the workplace is now acceptable behaviour?

[Hummingbirdyy]

I'm in my late 30s and have worked since I was 16. Im not sure if this is something unique to my workplace however, I've noticed a growing trend in young ppl straight out of uni joining our workplace who have abysmal communication skills.

We have a young person at the moment who has been with us nearly 2 years. They refuse to deal with clients and just does the backend work of a project. We have an informal reception area - ppl knock at the door and we deal with their query. They never get up and answer the door.

They sit in silence the entire time they are there, listen in to our conversations and smile to themselves when it's something funny but don't participate. If they do talk it's very rare and awkward and just about work - one or two sentences. They then go home and send half a dozen emails when they could have just spoken to us about it which would have been quicker instead of going back and forth with emails. If I call their number (work phone) they never answer.

A colleague's DM passed away recently in very sudden and tragic circumstances. It was an extremely difficult time for my colleague and this was no secret. She spoke about it openly. The young person who sits next to her, not once asked how she was doing or even acknowledged it. I only know this as colleague was slightly hurt that they didn't ask as she does try to make an effort with younger colleague.

This type of behaviour has been similar in the 3 of the 5 most recent graduates at work.

Im not asking anyone to make friends at work ( I certainly don't) and be life of the party, chatting away constantly but a certain level of communication with your colleagues, in my mind is expected and it's considered rude to just sit there in silence and especially to pick and choose jobs that require minimal verbal communication.

I'm expecting the usual mn response that noone should have any expectation to speak to anyone at work and that's it's absolutely acceptable to only do work that you're comfortable with.

Autism?

Clearly whoever is responsible for employing them doesn't agree.

I think the parents have to teach them that this is not acceptable

I didn't want to mention interviews in my OP as the 3 who have poor communication skills all joined without any interviews! They are all someone's niece / son / nephew etc from the management team. 2 of them have gone to other departments and one is still with us.

The people choosing have not considered the team and best fit. This person doesn’t suit this particular office. Who is supposed to be managing them? Who is doing their performance reviews? How come no one notices the imbalance of tasks and expectations? You are all poorly managed and clearly the recruitment strategy isn’t great.

Genuine question - Is this how autistic ppl would behave in the workplace?

If you are their manager then why haven’t you addressed this with them?

If you’re not their manager, it’s not for you to sort out. Presumably their manager is happy with their work.

The recruitment is an issue as several of them have essentially been given the job without an interview. Due to them being related to senior management/ board our managers don't feel confident in raising any issues.

Their manager is happy with what they have chosen to do, however no they aren't happy with them overall. The young colleague we have at the moment has been the worst at picking and choosing tasks that they clearly enjoy and involve zero communication. This person is related to one of the most senior managers in the company so not sure this is why they are more brass neck about it! The others haven't been so bad with regards to tasks.

Quite possibly yes. Avoiding unexpected tasks (door), social difficulties (not knowing what to say in certain situations), preferring written communication to spoken to avoid misunderstandings and have a paper trail, working on work rather than with clients. What is the quality of their work?

I thought it too when I read your op.

Every autistic person is different so you can't really make that assumption, no.

I've noticed that communication skills in the workplace has basically fallen off a cliff.

No engagement on projects, radio silence response to emails. One word response to Teams messages, sometimes just an emoji.

There is a generally poor level of communication where I work.... And most people are aged 40+.

So it's definitely not isolated to young 'uns.

I work in professional services for a large organisation and cannot believe most people I work with are A. Still employed, and B. Have the lack of professionalism and general courtesy to behave like they do.

It's totally unacceptable.

At first, I had empathy for them and can absolutely understand that as a young inexperienced person, you're not very confident in dealing with unexpected queries, talking to colleagues, not knowing whether you should join in with the conversation, whether you've said the right thing etc. however after nearly 2 years, I'd expect some level of effort on their part otherwise how will they ever improve their communication skills?

There's a generally poor level of communication where I work, but in our case it stems from one toxic individual.

In your workplace it sounds like it's a reasonably straight forward case of recruitment being the root cause. When I interview young people there's a mixture of communication skill abilities, and I am able to select those with the best skills. Of the last, say, six that I have recruited, three have needed some shaping around their communication skills. One left, and the others are better for having got a bit more experience under their belt. It's a shame it sounds like it's next to impossible for anybody who cares and could make a difference, to give your lad some guidance.

The refusal to deal with clients or answer their work phone is something the manager should pull them up on. But they don’t have to make conversation about matters that aren’t to do with their job is they don’t want to.

They? How many people are you talking about?

He or she needs to be taught, gently, it could be lack of confidence so go easy.

Recently I received an email with no text in it whatsoever. There was a question in the header along with the case number. I replied "yes" in the header. I found it rude and lazy.

I work for a very large organisation where several teams are involved throughout every process. People communicate in their own teams and dont communicate well across teams. The job is made impossible. Nothing gets done or resolved, customer complaints are referred repeatedly to the ombudsman and we have a very poor reputation.

Most of us either work remotely, on the move or autonomously from single space offices which doesn't help. We use more than one CRM system, and about 10 other applications and processes stall or get lost, requests are pinged back, forms changed, teams shuffled, work reallocated constantly and at least once a month we give feedback on an ongoing change management process that is being poorly managed......it chaos, stressful, lonely and frustrating.

Every failure and issue is due to poor communication here, if only it was just the chit chat missing!

I say they, however in my last couple of posts I am talking about the current individual. They have been here for 2 years and it it's a lack of confidence, things haven't improved in the 2 years they've been here and doubt they will in the next 2 years either. There is absolutely zero effort on their part to make a change. They could try and make an effort with answering the door and if they can't the query, they could ask someone, they would be happy to help.

its very sad - communication skills are so important

@LooneyLiberalSpaceWaster haha yes, I understood what you're saying. This particular individual is fine getting on with work that they can get on with individually. What's frustrating is how they have pick and choose tasks which require no communication. Noone particularly enjoys working with clients - some are lovely and others can be difficult and more demanding. We have some colleagues who are excellent at this part of the job and others who aren't as good but the fact is we all do our share and help each other out. This individual really isn't a good team player, quite selfish in fact.

I agree. I'm not expecting young people to enter the workforce with an ability to navigate difficult conversations, deal with conflict, network and chair meetings on their first day. However, communication skills are part of soft skills which is essential in work. I know there are people here that think it's perfectly acceptable to not talk or acknowledge your colleagues at all but they aren't giving a good impression and that speaks volumes.

@AnotherHormonalWoman in the young people that you do interview, are you seeing a trend in poor communication skills over the years? I think that's my concern.

I remember in another workplace we had a 20 year old join and they were very shy and quiet. They were clearly very bright and able, however by the end of the 3 years that they were there, they had come out of their shell and had become so much more confident.

They were inquisitive and asked questions if they didn't know anything. It was really nice to see them flourish and develop as an individual. Last we heard from them, they're doing really well career wise. If they had just sat in a corner and not spoken, it would have been a very different picture, id expect.

It might be a confidence/experience thing? I'm 45 now but I remember in my first job in my early twenties my boss pulled me in and said people were complaining I was rude because I never said hello or chatted. It just hadn't occurred to me to do that, as weird as it sounds.

I didn’t have any comms skills in my first job.

at school you are told to shut up and get on with it and that’s what I did.
i developed them as I got experience in the workplace.

I understand that it's a lack of experience and confidence issue but surely after 2 years you'd expect some level of even slight improvement. There's been no effort on their part. That's the part I'm finding concerning. They're in their comfort zone and happy to just stay there even if it's rude and they're not pulling their weight in tasks at work.