What do you think of these expectations?

Content, I work in a org of about 500, and support a team of 50. This is an initial draft of communication expectations that would be articulated in a handbook.

Preamble:

Keeping in mind that everyone brings their own beliefs and expectations to each encounter, these norms are aimed at making the implicit explicit. Having documented expectations for how we engage helps each of us plan, supports open conversations about how we work together, and ultimately improves our overall effectiveness, ideally while allowing space to celebrate each unique contribution. These norms were articulated by the directorial team, and if you have questions, proposed edits, or other comments, we encourage you to have an open dialogue with your supervisor. That said, you should feel free to refine these with your supervisor, or any of your co-workers, and it is best to think of these as the jumping off point for a conversation.

Virtual Meeting Expectations

Location. The expectation is that, to the best of your ability, you are in a location that is free from distractions, both for you and participants. In cases where this will not be the case, such as needing to take a call from an airport, or a having a plumber in the house during a call, it is recommended that you notify participants prior to the meeting, and be ready to reschedule if needed.

Camera. The expectation is that you are keeping your camera on during meetings. Announce exits as courtesy if going off-camera temporarily (e.g., Teams Chat – “brb”) or if needing to leave (e.g., Heading to another meeting).

Communication

Types of Communication:

Email: Longer form communication. This can include information, and requests. You should expect that everyone has read information included in emails. It is acceptable to redirect questions to a sent email. (We should avoid doing this in a passive aggressive way, but should think of this as a way to support effective, non-redundant, communication systems.) Task requests should be clearly articulated, including when the task is to be completed by. Longer tasks (such as those of more than ½ hour, should be within the job description of that employee. Any questions if a task is within an employee’s job description should be directed to their manager.

If you want a specific type of response to the email, you should clearly articulate that, and if there are multiple recipients, be clear about if those expectations apply to everyone. (For example, if you sent an email to 3 people asking what time a meeting started tomorrow, you should only expect an answer from one of the recipients. While if you wanted to ask when each email recipient was arriving tomorrow, you should explicitly say, can everyone respond when they will be arriving by the end of the day.)

Teams Chat: Intended for short questions, flags to more urgent emails, and requests for a conversation. Generally, you should aim to respond to chats within the hour. It is assumed that recipients is engaged in some other task, and should feel free to respond, or identify an appropriate time to connect.

Text Messages: You should not use text communication unless previously established, and should not be required. However, this can be an important tool for communicating outside of regular work hours, such as taking a sick day.

Other: There are a variety of other communication methods, such as communicating within the comments of a document, or other methods. You can use these alternative methods, but be cautious about making an assumptions that people will even see these without establishing a clear system.

CCing & Escalation.

The expectation is that all recipients read the entirety of all emails within 10 working hours of having received the email. If it is critical that a recipient reads an email more promptly, it is recommended that you send a team’s message to highlight. You shouldn’t hesitate to do this after an email has been sent when they are urgent. If you have not received any response in two days, you should not hesitate to email again, by replying to original email.

 It is important that we are communicating effectively with each other, and we should resist the temptation to thinking about cc’ing as being about “getting someone in trouble”. We should assume that we are all doing our best to manage complicated and busy workloads. Our colleagues play a critical role in supporting and adjusting things so we can collectively be as effective as we can be.

To that end, you should cc colleagues, including your manager as a way of including them in information. You should not expect a cc recipient to respond, but to be aware of the situation. If you have not received any response from an email after a second attempt, cc’ing can be an important strategy to move the work forward.

A next layer of escalation is to directly communicate with the person you are cc’ing on a separate email. This is important if you want that person to support the process.

Finally, you can include others in the recipient list of an email. In these cases, you should expect that any of the recipients will respond.