How to Overcome Social Awkwardness in the Workplace
If you’re a socially awkward person, you’ve either already felt the negative impacts of being socially inept in the workplace, or you’re about to enter the workforce and are anxious about being socially awkward.
As someone who was severely socially awkward when I first entered the workplace and who has felt the sting of my social ineptness more times than I’d like to admit, I understand the anxiety that comes with lacking normative social skills when you’re expected to participate in meetings and activities with others.
In this article, I wanted to give you some advice that has worked for me when I was overcoming my social and relational challenges so that you can become more emotionally intelligent in professional settings.
The Impact of Social Skills in the Workplace
Good interpersonal skills are not just beneficial in the personal aspects of your life, like creating friendships; they can have a good or bad effect on your career success.
If you’re a fan of the sitcom The Office, you’re probably familiar with Dwight Schrute, who is known as the socially awkward, overbearing employee at Dunder Mifflin.
In the show, he’s known as an excellent salesman, but his social and relational struggles makes him difficult to work with, including his abrasive and blunt way of speaking, the inappropriate topics he brings up in the workplace setting, and his overall lack of emotional intelligence, all of which keep him from ever moving up the corporate ranks. While Dwight is a fictional character, there is some variation of a similar character in almost every real-world workplace.
From the moment you walk into the interview to the time when you’ve got the job, knowing how to communicate with your team members and higher-ups is an important part of your career skillset. Otherwise, it can be difficult to navigate and succeed.
If you don’t believe me, look at any job listing on Glassdoor, LinkedIn, or Indeed, and you’ll likely see requirements like the following: “Knows how to work well with a team,” “Strong communication skills,” or “Collaborate with others.”
Even in jobs that require lower amounts of human-to-human contact, companies need people who can communicate and get along well with others both verbally and through text-based communication like email, Slack messages, live chat, etc. Just think about how many times you or someone you know has complained ad nauseam about the lack of good, human customer support in an increasingly online, AI-powered world.
Poor Social Skills Can:
Make it uncomfortable for others to work with you
Whether it’s intentional or unintentional, behavior that’s perceived as being socially awkward can confuse others and make it difficult for them to interpret your intentions. This discomfort can be more pronounced in a workplace setting mainly because everyone who works in an office is forced (for lack of a better word) to interact with everyone else, whether they want to or not.
Give you a poor reputation as an employee/coworker
Depending on the level of your awkwardness, your behavior can make you stand out for less-than-desirable reasons. It’s not that people will think you’re a bad person or difficult to work with, but the fact that your behavior and conversation makes people uneasy can sometimes give you a reputation of that “awkward person” in the workplace.
Limit your networking opportunities
Having poor social and emotional skills can limit your networking opportunities, because any business includes people who have to communicate and work together.
It might seem like all you need to do is be a skilled, knowledgeable worker to create valuable work-based connections, but in my experience, behavior that’s seen as socially awkward can prevent others from wanting to approach and interact with you in social settings which cuts off opportunities before they can even start, or makes people question your ability to work well with others..
Isolate you from your coworkers
If people generally don’t feel comfortable around you, you won’t have the level of office comradery that can make your work life vastly more enjoyable because you will unintentionally isolate yourself.
Your coworkers will still work with you when necessary because it’s part of the job, but by being socially awkward, they don’t have any incentive to go out of their way to approach you and engage with you on a friendly, non-work related basis.
Great Social Skills Can:
Make others look forward to working with you
It’s one thing for people to tolerate working with you, but it’s another when people smile a little at the thought of working with you because you make people feel valued and emotionally sound. It makes them feel good, and it makes you feel good to be that coworker/employee that people enjoy interacting with in the workplace.
Broaden your networking opportunities
Having good social and emotional skills gives you more opportunities to make meaningful work connections because it positions you to be approached by others in social settings like networking events, it gives others a positive first impression of you, and it allows you to connect with people on a deeper level, which establishes trust in your values and abilities and makes you more memorable to people.
Give you better shot at promotions and pay raises
According to Talent Smart EQ, people with high emotional intelligence make an average of $29,000 per year more than people with low emotional intelligence. This doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed a promotion or pay raise just from being a socialite, but it does suggest that being socially skilled and emotionally intelligent is correlated with higher wages.
For instance, if you’re a salesperson or customer service rep for a company, being emotionally intelligent is a crucial aspect of your job and can be the difference between making the customer happy or losing a client, no matter how knowledgeable you are on the product or service.
Give you an overall better experience in the workplace
The average person spends about 1/3 of their life, or 90,000 hours at work. That’s quite a large chunk of your life! Considering these findings, it reasonable to make that time spent at work as positive as you can, and while you don’t have control of every aspect of your job, you do have control over your behavior and your attitude.
Having good social skills will make those long hours at work more bearable by creating more meaningful and successful work relationships.
It’s safe to say that at our core, humans are naturally social beings, and a few decades of technology in the workforce has not successfully wiped out our need for emotional connection with other humans that has evolved for millions of years.
Tips for Improving Workplace Social Skills
If you’re looking for ways to overcome social awkwardness in your place of work, whether you work in the office or remotely, here are some helpful tips you can start implementing the next time you’re on the clock:
Greet people around the office when you see them
Just because it’s an office doesn’t mean you have to walk around like drones on a mission. People are still at the core of business operations, and we thrive on human connection.
So try to say “Good morning” to people when you first walk in. Ask how someone’s weekend was when you see them at the water cooler or the coffee pot. It’s the little interactions are how good work relationships start; after all, if people never know you’re open to talking with them, they’ll never learn more about you and your abilities.
Practice your in-person conversational skills
Whether it’s a casual water cooler conversation, a question you have for a coworker or higher up, or a more formal conference room meeting, basic conversational and relational skills are the foundation of any work place interaction.
So, brush up on the basic principles of conversations and relating to people. You can start with my article The Complete Guide to Social Aptitude for Awkward People which is my in-depth behavioral and conversational guide for chronically socially awkward people like I once was.
Learn how to read the essential social cues
Dealing with a coworker or an employee who can’t pick up on social cues can be unsettling for others in the office.
It’s important to learn how to read the little cues that we encounter everyday, like when people are enjoying your conversation, when they are too busy to talk at the moment, or when they don’t want to continue the conversation.
If you need some help deciphering those cues, check out my article 5 Major Signs That You Are Socially Awkward which outlines 5 common behaviors that people do in response to socially unaware behavior.
Work on your communication in meetings
Workplace meetings are the perfect place to practice your communication skills and social skills. You can take these opportunities to practice having light conversations before the meeting starts, build onto people’s ideas during the meeting, contributing to the conversation in a meaningful way even if it’s just a few words, knowing how to gracefully disagree with people’s ideas without devaluing their opinions, and other aspects of good communication.
Be personable in your writing communication
Written communication is more important now than ever because of the increase in remote and online work. For socially awkward people, written communication is often easier because we can get the technical aspects of what we want to say across without having to physically interact with people, but the downside is that your lack of social and emotional awareness can sometimes come across in your writing if there is not the right amount of emphasis on the human aspect of the communication.
Try to greet people at the start of your emails and Slack messages with something short and simple, like “I hope you’re feeling better since you’ve been out sick,” or “I hope you enjoyed your vacation.” When the conversation is over, don’t forget to say “Thanks” or “No problem. Let me know if you have other questions.” Little things like that can put the human connection back into written communication.
Attend after-hours work gatherings (i.e. office parties)
I know it’s tempting for people who struggle socially to avoid casual workplace events that would require more socialization than a typical work day, especially if you’re an introvert who despises going to social gatherings like office parties, but after-hours work gatherings are a great place to get to know people outside of the more formal office setting which means there is lots of opportunity to create more meaningful connections with your coworkers.
So the next time you think about avoiding the next office BBQ or holiday party, consider attending for at least 1 or 2 hours and striking up a conversation with a handful of people. You don’t have to be the life of the party — you just have to make a few well-intentioned connections with the people you work with.
I hope you get a chance to think over my advice before your next work day or office party. Remember it’s not about being a kiss up; it’s about making memorable connections. You’ll see the positive results in due time!
More Resources for Social Awkwardness in the Workplace:
Have you had your fair share of awkward moments in your office? Let me know; I love hearing stories from readers like you!
