CorpComms Magazine

If you are the kind of person who tuts at pre-watershed obscenities or thinks Scottish comedian Billy Connolly needs to wash his dirty mouth out, please look away now. In fact, please skip the next four pages, do not pass Go, and do not collect £200.

This article is all about swearing and the strange relationship we have with it. Most of us do it, sometimes without thinking, and yet there are times when it is just not appropriate: it's probably best avoided when meeting the prospective mother-in-law or father-in-law for the first time, for example, or when outside the school gates or, indeed, at work.

The latter is possibly the place where we exhibit the most schizophrenic attitude to expletives. Many people are reluctant to condone swearing at work, yet most admit to indulging in a bit of effing and blinding every now and then.

No offence

The tide may be turning, however. Yehuda Baruch, professor of management at the University of East Anglia-based Norwich Business School, recently published a study on the subject that concluded - among other things - that 'swearing is good for the workplace'. In it, Baruch argues that swearing could be a good way for stressed-out employees to let off steam and vent frustration.

Swearing may well facilitate stress relief, but is it really good for the workplace? Baruch and his team argue that it is, saying it helps foster camaraderie among colleagues while developing social relationships.

Not everyone is convinced of the merits of letting rip at work, however. 'Swearing is too risky,' says Tony Thorne, a professor of language at Kings College, London. 'Not everyone has the same attitude to it, so it's risky to presume that it is acceptable or that it helps bonding.'

Thorne is not alone in recognising the grave risks of littering your everyday conversations with profanities. 'Swearing is a double-edged sword,' notes Lee Smith, a specialist in internal communications and founder of employee communications firm Gatehouse. 'There are positive sides to it - it may be a good way of building team spirit and camaraderie - but the flip side is that it can be incredibly divisive and, while it can bring some people into the fold, it can alienate others.'

A report released in spring by leadership training specialists Aziz Corporation found that 36 percent of UK senior managers and directors accepted swearing as part of workplace culture. Managers may turn a blind eye to bad language, but they still seem a long way off encouraging it. 'It is tolerable nowadays only as shouting into empty air - in cases of 'desk rage' or 'computer rage', for example - but not when directed at an individual, and never when it's sexual or racial,' argues Thorne.

Many employers admit they have no explicit guidelines on swearing as part of their internal codes of conduct. Advertising agency WPP is quite typical in this respect, outlawing sexual harassment and discrimination but not mentioning swearing in its code. Instead it makes reference to 'offensive behaviour of any kind, which includes the persistent demeaning of individuals through words or actions.'

'Swearing is, in effect, banned at our company, but I'm not sure we have that explicitly written down anywhere,' notes John Davies, corporate communications manager at infrastructure firm Carillion. 'Certainly, swearing in the workplace is generally regarded as unacceptable, but I'm not sure that's in any of our codes of conduct.'

Best behaviour

This seems to be typical of the stance of many communicators. 'We understand there can be lapses, but normally we have quite a well-behaved department,' says Helen Lennox, head of corporate affairs at Scottish Water. 'We expect people to behave in a mature, respectable manner.'

'I don't think swearing is something that has been explicitly considered. You often find a clause on language under 'bullying', but it's something not many people have thought about before as internal communicators,' notes Smith. 'I really think the issue warrants some attention.'

Feona McEwan, head of corporate communications at WPP, doesn't see a problem. 'Our code is backed up by proper complaint channels, including a whistleblowing line; as such, we feel that we and our companies address this issue appropriately,' she explains.

Baruch's study concludes that it is important for those in charge to gauge attitudes to bad language. 'Managers need to understand how their staff feel about swearing,' it notes. 'The challenge for them is to master the art of knowing when to turn a blind eye to communication that does not meet their own standards.'

'You have to recognise that swearing is inevitable in the workplace - and if part of the role of the internal communicator is to build the right kind of culture and operating climate inside organisations, it's something we need to think about and have a view on,' says Smith.

Baruch's study concludes that female workers and lower-level employees are the biggest offenders; younger managers and professionals were found to be more tolerant, suggesting that age may be a key factor in the acceptance of taboo language in the workplace.

Profanity through the ages

Swearing at work is nothing new. ' I remember very foul-mouthed working environments 20 or 30 years ago, when political correctness hadn't even been heard of,' Thorne recalls. 'Women at Ford of Dagenham and on assembly lines and in canteens, and men everywhere - from the boardroom to the shop floor - effed and blinded away to their hearts' content, sometimes very colourfully and extensively.'

The nature of swearing has changed, however, with some suggesting that its popularity is a response to the widespread use of modern corporate jargon. Thorne says polls since 2005 have suggested that junior to middle-level employees feel annoyed by jargon and mostly consider it unnecessary.

'There is a backlash against jargon and excessive use of acronyms, and resorting to swearing may be part of this,' Smith states. 'I wouldn't advocate swearing in the workplace, but as communicators we need to inject more emotion into our communications, and swearing is one of the things filling that vacuum at the moment.'

Davies thinks you can add more emotion without swearing. His firm took the unusual step of getting employees to express their values for internal communications in their own plain speak, minus the bad language. 'We thought one of the reasons our internal communications weren't as successful as we would have liked was because they were written in a kind of business language,' he explains.

'Our new approach has really been about getting our people to give their own interpretation of what the values mean to them. Putting it in simplified language does make some people wince a little, because not everyone speaks and writes in perfect English, but it has proved very popular.'

Forum decorum

While endorsing swearing on one level, Baruch's study did stress the dangers of swearing at senior staff, customers or product users. Internet radio station Last FM became a casualty when one of its employees used the ' f-word ' on an official forum. While the word was not aimed at end users, its use prompted a flurry of complaints from subscribers.

'I don't have any problem with the word itself, at least most of the time,' complained one commenter. ' It 's the context in which it was used, namely by a professional in a public forum when discussing technical issues with customers.'

There are also huge cultural differences in attitudes to swearing, which in the age of globalisation should have a significant bearing on our dialogues with each other. Rumour has it that when a certain US conglomerate acquired a relatively new UK company, one of the first changes the former made was to stamp out the use of the 'c-word' in the boardroom - a change that profoundly altered the vocabulary used by one of the UK company's founders. 'The US still has a more puritan attitude to language, and political correctness is generally observed there,' Thorne asserts.

The differences in attitude with regard to swearing aren't just international. 'The UK public sector is similarly prudish, and more and more so, partly due to legislation since 2005,' Thorne adds.

As well as the private/public distinction, there are differences across sectors. 'It can depend on the nature of the business, as well as the nature of the swearing,' Smith points out. 'It really is a broad spectrum, from a mild cuss to something more sinister and everything in between.'

Most people, from the expert to the most hardened swearer, agree that there is a line that can easily be crossed. Using language refer ring to race, sexual orientation or religion can land you in really hot water. 'It can be a legal minefield - abusive language is a form of bullying,' warns Smith.

So, as the experts point out, before you start swearing at your boss in a bid to bond, offensive swearing should be avoided - especially where it generates greater levels of stress than it relieves.

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