Calls and instant messages

Phone calls, video calls, even instant messages. There are so many ways to communicate at work. Voicenote clips I hardly ever use phone calls at work. They're almost always video calls. Yeah, I can't remember the last time I made an actual phone call. It's really easy to just message someone at work or start a call online. I might call somebody on the phone if there's something urgent, but I don't think I use phone calls at work as often as before. Instant messages are very useful at work. We use them all the time.

In this episode of Office English, we're looking at the language of calls and texts at work.

Welcome to Office English from BBC Learning English, your podcast guide to the language of business. I'm Pippa.

And I'm Phil, and we're here to talk about the more difficult parts of speaking English at work. In episode one we were talking about emails, but there are loads of other ways that people communicate in the workplace today. What's your favourite, Pippa?

I think my favourite is actually a video call. I think it's so useful, now that lots of people work from home some of the time, to be able to have a video call and to talk with people, and it means that a meeting can be quite productive because you can prepare what you want to say in advance and you don't have the pressure of being in the room with people. I find that quite useful, actually. What about you, Phil?

I think I like instant messages because they're kind of immediate, they're kind of you can get a quick answer quite often, you can chat quite easily, you can look back and see what someone said. I think they're quite practical and they just... they just feel a lot freer than email.

Yeah, but we should talk about instant messages because not everybody has those at work. So, an instant message is what a lot of offices use now so that when you are working at home, working remotely, you can still keep in touch really easily with the people that you work with. So, it will be a messaging platform that might be part of your email or a different app at work and you can talk to your colleagues like you might do on your phone. You can also have the messages on your phone. So it makes it really easy. And yeah, those are really popular now. And we use them here at BBC Learning English. But, with all these different ways to talk to colleagues at work, making sure you say the right thing is quite stressful, even if you speak English like a pro. So, we're going to look at some useful phrases to use whether you're talking on a video call, using an instant messaging app, or making a good old fashioned phone call.

Let's start with video calls. We talked about the difficult language of meetings before on the podcast. But having a meeting via video can make things even more complicated. What phrases can help us here, Pippa?

Well, lots of the phrases around video calls are usually around technology. So if there are problems on the video call, and lots of people listening will have experienced this. So we need to know phrases like could you mute, please? to tell somebody to turn their microphone off. Or you're on mute to tell someone their microphone is turned off and they need to turn it on to speak. But it is also useful to be able to say things like my internet is slow or I'm going to turn off my video because my internet is rubbish, which means, you know, I'm going to try and help the call, and then the other one is your video is freezing, which means your video is not very good because your internet connection is bad. There's a lot of language around the technology of video calls, Phil.

There's one there I like, it's Ooh sorry, you're breaking up. I didn't catch that.

Yeah. Which you can also use if you weren't listening and you need them to repeat.

Don't give away the secrets, Pippa!

But then you also need to be able to interrupt during a video call. Now this can be really difficult because when everyone's talking on a video call it's harder to know when someone is about to speak. You might have noticed when you use a video call people often talk over each other. But so, you can use some phrases like could I stop you for just a moment or sorry, would you mind if I asked a quick question? Being polite at all times when you're trying to interrupt because you might not get the natural pause like you do in an in-person meeting.

Yeah and sometimes on the different platforms that people use there are things where you can put your hand up or show a little picture or something to say that you want to say something.

Yeah, and that can be a good way, if you're chairing a meeting, to keep on top of when people want to speak. So, there's lots of technical language for video calls. But what about sending text messages or instant messages at work? How do these work, Phil?

Yes. The great thing about instant messages is they're very quick and they can be very immediate. But of course, that also causes a problem sometimes because maybe we expect an immediate response. Or maybe when someone sends it to us, we think they expect an immediate response. We feel under pressure and we want to... We need to stop doing what we're doing or we're in a meeting somewhere else. So it's quite good to use phrases when you're sending it saying when you have a moment or sorry to bother you. Actually and also, if when you do get a message you're quite busy and you can't respond are there any good phrases you could use for that, Pippa?

Yeah. You could just say I'm in a meeting right now, I'll get back to you later or I'm really sorry, I don't have time, maybe ask... Phil. Yeah, and also I think, when you want to send an instant message to somebody, you should think about what you're messaging them. So what the topic is, so is instant message the best place for your conversation because things get lost so easily if they're in an instant message because the chat carries on and it's hard to search for something. So, if it's an important thing or a document or something that somebody might need to find again, an email might be better. But if it's more like, oh, it's going to be much quicker if we quickly chat about it, a bit like you might do if you thought I'm going to phone somebody, then that's when you use an instant message.

Now, there is one thing that I think is a little bit complicated about instant messages and that is in a way we don't have many rules yet on how to use them. So I think we can sometimes be incredibly informal in instant messages, much more so than you'd ever be on an email. But then on the other hand, sometimes you do have to instant message someone who you don't know so well, or they're very important or you have to get through to them and we might change the way that we send our message. We might suddenly become much more formal and it look a little bit like an email the things that we're sending, or lines from an email.

Yes.

What do you think about emojis and GIFs in instant messages?

Oh, we like emojis. I think that's the place for an emoji. If it feels like that's the way other people at your work are using it, then definitely. Go for it. The reason that these platforms exist is to try and create a sense of being in the office but when you're not. So they are supposed to be more chatty. They are supposed to be friendlier. But yeah, just keep an eye on what other people are doing. So try and look at other messages people send to you and respond in a similar way.

Right so, we've covered video calls and instant messages, two new ways to talk to people at work. But sometimes you just need to pick up the phone and call somebody. Now, are there any phrases that can help us with that, Pippa?

Yes so, when you're calling someone on the phone, and you might already be familiar with this, you want to introduce yourself and check that you have got the right person. So you might say Hi, this is Pippa from BBC Learning English. Is that Phil speaking? That's when you're calling somebody from outside your organisation or somebody that you don't know. But because we don't use phones as often, definitely in the UK now at work in the office, it might be useful to check the person's free to speak to you. So, especially if you're calling them out of the blue, so that means you're calling them and they didn't expect a call from you, you say is now a good time to talk? or do you have a few minutes to talk about this? Just a polite way of checking that they have the time to speak to you because people get annoyed if you call them out of the blue.

Yes and another thing that I sometimes do when I'm calling... Often when I call someone it's because I've got a problem and I need to get it sorted out. So I'm calling other departments and I don't know whether they can help me or not. I might just say I don't know if you can help me, but... or I don't know if this is the right place, but... That's something I say quite a lot. And it often isn't the right place. Sometimes they can point you to the right place to call.

They're much more likely to be helpful if you start the call in a friendly way, rather than demanding something from, for instance, the IT department, as soon as you call them. Just like when you are writing an email, taking the time to study how other people at your workplace use messages, video calls and phone calls to communicate can be really useful to make sure you get the tone of your language right, and that you're using the right platform for the right message.

Let's hear again from a BBC Learning English colleagues. Voicenote clips I might call somebody on the phone. If there's something urgent, but I don't think I use phone calls at work as often as before. I hardly ever use phone calls at work, they're almost always video calls. Yeah, I can't remember the last time I made an actual phone call.

It sounds like, as the workplace changes, as more of us work from home and as we have more access to the internet, people use phones a lot less and video calls and messages more. What do you think, Phil?

I think it might depend what industry you work in. I think some people might be very keen on making lots of phone calls, whereas in others it's much more based on email. So it does depend a little bit on the culture of the company you work in and maybe the type of company that you're working for as well. That's it for this episode of Office English. Remember, there's loads more courses

Next time, we'll be talking about mistakes and the language we can use when things go wrong at work.

Ooh, I think I might need that one. See you then. Bye.

Bye!