How to Handle Profanity on the Phone in the Workplace
Maintaining a pleasant, safe and discrimination-free workplace can be more complex than it initially appears. While businesses are required to have policies to prevent age, sex, race and religious discrimination, a number of related interpersonal issues need to be considered when crafting workplace rules and employee policies. The use of profanity should be addressed on some level, and many employee handbooks or workplace polices spell out specific profanity policies. Some policies, especially of businesses that involve a lot of customer service, specify that no profanity is tolerated, including communication by telephone.
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Instructions
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Find your workplace's profanity policies. In most cases, neither written nor verbal vulgarity or profanity is tolerated at work. Some businesses have detailed profanity policies that specifically include how to handle profanity on the telephone, but others just include a general statement that profanity is not tolerated. Many businesses have explicit policies stating that repeat violations of the profanity policy can be grounds for disciplinary proceedings or even termination.
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Follow the policy spelled out in your employee handbook to deal with excessive profanity from a colleague at work. Profanity is still profanity when spoken on the telephone, and it is still inappropriate behavior.
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Consider informally discussing with your colleague that his use of profanity on the telephone bothers you before you lodge an official complaint or contact a supervisor. Many times, a friendly request to be more respectful of other people at work takes care of the problem. If you have a history of problems with the individual or he has an explosive temper, however, then it may be best to avoid potential confrontations and tell your supervisor about the situation.
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Write down all the instances of profanity to which you were subjected during conversations on the telephone or that you couldn't help overhearing in telephone conversations of other people. Document several cases to make it clear the use of profanity on the phone is habitual.
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Contact your supervisor or take other steps as outlined in your employee handbook if the situation does not improve and the profanity continues. Everyone has the right to a safe and respectful work environment, and the management of a business is responsible for taking any necessary steps to maintain that environment.
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Tips & Warnings
You do not have to tolerate profanity in your job when you interact with customers either. Almost all jobs that require employees to interact with customers, whether in person or by telephone, have policies regarding customer use of profanity and how to handle the situation appropriately.
If the profanity on the telephone is from your supervisor or another higher level manager or executive, it is usually a better career move to discuss the situation with a senior representative of the human resources department than to confront the individual.
References
- BNet; Swearing at Work; Suzanne Lucas; June 2010
- The Citadel: Employee Relations -- Problems in the Workplace
- "The Washington Post"; Capital Business -- Career Coach: The Use of Obscenity at Work; Joyce E.A. Russell; May 8, 2011
- "The Wall Street Journal"; George Carlin Never Would've Cut It at the New Goldman Sachs; Cassell Bryan-Low and Aaron Lucchetti; July 29, 2010
- "Customer Service for Dummies"; The Cursing Caller; Karen Leland and Keith Bailey; 2006
