Dilemma
“A new, young colleague talks a lot and about irrelevant matters to colleagues at awkward moments, when they want to concentrate on work. Do you still be nice to talk back because the person is new and perhaps ignorant, or do you address the person and say that sometimes it can keep his mouth shut?”
Man (30) – Name known to the editors
Create other social moments
This dilemma fits in with the current time, see organizational psychologist Nicoline Hermans. “This kind of irritations mainly occur in large office gardens where people are all together,” she says. “You now see such an office design more often than before, when people had their own office.”
It is important to note that it is a new colleague, says Hermans. If you are new to a team, it takes time to get to know the unwritten rules. “With some offices it is an unwritten rule that you always ask if the rest also want to drink something if you are going to get something for yourself. It takes some time to find out. That also applies to the question when you can disturb each other during work.”
For example, if you do not want to say anything about the behavior of the colleague, you can set up headphones, for example, according to Hermans. “With that you give the signal that you are concentrated and are not open to a conversation for a moment. If the person does not pick up that signal, you can be explicitly about it and say that you have headphones on because you really want to work concentrated.”
According to Hermans, one picks up this type of signals faster than the other. “Some people first look the cat out of the tree and want to know how it works somewhere before they make more contact with colleagues,” says Hermans. “Others naturally come to the fore faster, without observing how colleagues behave among themselves.”
This young employee will probably not have much work experience yet, says Hermans. “After completing a course you are in principle prepared to work in terms of content, but you still have to learn how to deal with each other in an office.” You will not receive a manual for that in the study. “An internship can therefore be very useful to better recognize when your colleagues should and should not disturb.”
For colleagues of this newcomer it would be good to ensure that the person is still included in the team. “Create other social moments to involve someone in the team,” says Hermans. “Ask him or her to have lunch with, go and get coffee together or take a walk. Then he might feel less the need to chat all the time.”
There are offices that have a system for this, Hermans knows. “Employees put a red or green card on their desk there if they want to chat or not,” she says. “But I don’t think many teams would choose for that; then you formalize the social interaction very much.”
Appeal
“Stand in the place of the other and imagine: you do something that annoys the other person and you don’t notice that,” says career adviser Nancy Boere. “How would you find it not to hear anything about that?”
She sees that people often find it difficult to speak out about things like this. “We want to keep the harmony. But by not expressing ourselves, we disrupt the harmony anyway. It requires a high degree of emotional adulthood to speak out and to do so in a way so that you can continue together.”
Those who do not speak out on time runs the risk that the tension will increase and that you will still be irritated. “You pronounce before you are high in the emotion,” says Boere. “It is essential to do something like that from a place of rest.”
If you find such a conversation exciting, Boere says, you can practice the best in advance – for example at home – with a friend with what you want to say. Then, at work, you take them aside. Never do it where other colleagues are. To the outside for a walk works well, says Boere, then you don’t have to look at each other – that makes it less confronting.
And then you say what you encounter. Nancy Boere addresses the imaginary colleague: “You often start conversations with colleagues who are working at that time. I find that annoying – keep it especially with yourself! Can we agree that you save your stories for a coffee moment? Write them up if necessary, and then we will come back to it later.”
Sometimes young, new colleagues are assigned a mentor. Organizational psychologist Nicoline Hermans: “If you as a mentor notice that he often disturbs other colleagues, you can also address this in a feedback interview.”
So
It takes a while before a new colleague with a possible little work experience knows what the unwritten rules are in the workplace. Sometimes you have to give someone time to become familiar with those rules. For example, put on your headphones to send the signal that you do not want to be disturbed. Perhaps it is better to speak to someone kindly. Do that before the emotions are too high for you.