Chat Etiquette Policy

Chat Etiquette Policy

‍Scope

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This policy affects all employees who are employed by The Vets Sales and Support Department.

Policy Elements:

The purpose of this policy is to establish and maintain consistent Slack or Chat etiquette that teams should follow to get the most out of their workplace collaboration tools while reducing employee stress and building a better workplace. (And don’t worry: Emojis and gifs are OK in moderation). 

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Don’t Continue Arguments/Disagreements Over Text

• Things can easily be misread and misinterpreted over text, especially since there is such a thing as “Slack Tone”.
• Offer to take a phone call or video chat
• Address common remote communication challenges

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Don’t get Involved in Other Department’s Slack Threads

• Out of context, diving into Slack channels/threads can cause unnecessary drama and confusion

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Don’t Blow Up Someone’s Slack in Off Hours

• Basic Slack Etiquette means respecting people’s time away from Slack
• People are in different time zones - you may accidentally ping someone when they aren’t online yet
• Avoid spamming teammates with a bunch of messages or items that could be unwanted or deemed inappropriate 

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Use Memes/Gifs/Emojis/ with Care

It's a thing of joy when you find the perfect meme to share with your teammates about that one problem client.

• Remember that plenty of other people can see your threads in certain Slack Channels

Keep in mind:

• Be mindful of inclusion - could that GIF actually be offensive to certain people?
• Is it worthy of hitting someone with a slack notification? (of course!)
• Be aware of others in the group and their sensitivity

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Understand Where to Post and When

• Always use threaded conversations with the “reply” feature instead of piling everything into one place
• Tag people who you need to see that particular message; it’s also a nice message to everyone else that you don’t need them.
• Create a new private group if it’s a question that doesn’t need to be handled in a group setting, if it’s something of a personal nature, or if you’re working as part of a temporary team where you need a place to connect with a group that doesn’t have any other channel for open communication on Slack

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‍Click HERE to Initial Once Read