Professionalism Is More Than Attire
By Bobby Bock
President of Central Florida Branch 406
On May 18 via email, we received the new national dress code for career non-bargaining employees. The author of this policy is Simon Story, vice president, Human Resources.
Over my 32 years as an EAS employee, I’ve always dressed professionally. I did not need a policy with do’s and don’ts. Most of our members want to not only be professional in how they dress, but also in how we interact with one another.
Recently, more EAS employees in leadership roles are failing to treat their subordinates professionally in verbal interactions, text messages and emails. I have observed higher-level managers using inappropriate language during their interactions with me in person, on telecons and in group settings.
No matter your level, some individuals think using profanity in the workplace is acceptable behavior. Leaders use profanity as an adjective to describe situations. We all know that, at times, a profanity is going to slip out. But profanity-laced discussions should not be the norm in our business communications.
Are you offended when someone uses profanity in your presence? Even though we all are adults and we have large vocabularies, there are too many who talk to us as if we were longshoremen (apologies to all the longshoremen out there).
We need to treat one another as we would like to be treated and bring civility back to the workplace. If you are someone who uses profanity in the workplace, take heed of what you are doing and realize the loss of respect from those who work for you.
If you are the recipient of workplace profanity, make a copy of this column and send it to the person who needs to improve their vocabulary. We all need to work together to clean up our act when it comes to communicating in the workplace.
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