Here’s a fun question for the group: how do you feel about swearing in the office? According to a recent study, swearing among co-workers can actually build team morale and help relieve tension at the office. As a recent article in Yahoo! News describes, the pair of researchers responsible for the study report: “... swearing in front of senior staff or customers should be seriously discouraged or banned, but in other circumstances it helped foster solidarity among employees and express frustration, stress or other feelings.”
Seems not unreasonable to me. We agree 100% that occasional swearing has got to be appropriate to the situation, and it’s never okay around clients, senior staff or the press. I’ll admit to dropping a bad word now and then, and it’s true that it can help blow off some steam and show our team of employees that I don’t take myself overly seriously. I can imagine the policy on swearing really depends on the office and even the industry or location: in New York City financial services, for example, it’s fairly common to speak colloquially in the office, but I can imagine that wouldn’t fly as well in a smaller town or another industry. Of course, the most important thing is that people feel comfortable working together and really pull as a team, so in many ways it’s a policy that depends on the dynamics of your group of employees.
What’s your experience? Do you work in an office where swearing is allowed or discouraged? What’s the effect of that policy, in your opinion?
[image: from Yahoo! online article]
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