There is a fine line between coming across as professional and being unprofessional; everyone has different expectations and experiences so others impressions of you are open to interpretation. Especially when you are starting out in your career, testing the boundaries are important so you know how to act in a professional environment. There are a few tricks you can implement to help make it easier.
#1 You’re habitually late
Being habitually late makes it seem like you don’t take your job seriously or respect your colleagues enough to be on time for them. While the pressures of life don’t always make for a restful night’s sleep, there are a few things that could be sapping your energy levels even more during the day. Try to
#2 You are distracted
Life can be busy, juggling our social lives, family lives and careers mean some serious multitasking. Work-life balance perfection is the dream for most ladies, but work is something that just never seems to be done. Some days you need to cut out all distractions to really get to grips with your work and get the bulk of it done. Setting out specific working times is a great way to keep your day on track.
#3 Joining in Gossip
This is one of those situations where it is easy to say and hard to do. Most of us, at one time or another, have joined in office gossip! However, if you are a serial offender then you are at risk of losing your colleagues trust; people won’t trust you to keep secrets which will keep you out of the loop on important decisions. Gossiping also makes you look insecure, and it a very unprofessional trait.
#4 You lack confidence
Life experiences, dominant personality traits and exposure to social events all add up to how you can handle large social situations. Being a confident ‘networker’ whether for work or personal is beneficial, it opens-up new worlds you never knew existed, expands meaningful relationships and you meet some amazingly interesting people. A lack of confidence doesn’t make you unprofessional but it does show up in networking situations, people can sometimes come across as aloof when they are shy.
#5 You don’t communicate well
On average, we spend 28% of our working week reading and replying to emails. That is 582 hours in a year! With so much time spent on this quick communication tool, we are all bound to slip up at some point. However, lacking basic polite communication is very unprofessional. If you find yourself writing an email in anger or frustration, STOP!!! Calm down and come back to it later. Nothing worse than being a keyboard warrior, people will remember that and not in a good way.
Let me know of any experiences you have had with unprofessionalism?
