These bad habits can ruin your work reputation

Habits perceived negatively in the workplace can end up ruining your professional reputation. The level of professionalism and demeanor carried in the workplace is noticed. People who spend their days not grooming their professional image and/or have tendencies to act inappropriately can do long-term or even permanent damage to their work reputation. Wondering what types of habits could come back to bite you in the butt? Read on.

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Poor social networking behaviors

In our digitally centric society, all the world is a stage. Truly. If you think about it, a large percentage of our population is busy putting out all sorts of information on social media on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube, blogs or other social media apps or outlets. In September 2018, Brandwatch reported the average daily time spent on these networks was 116 minutes with some of the more prominent sites managing tens of billions of messages per day!

Sometimes there is simply just TMI. 

Any information being constantly streamed might catch someone's eye and draw a lot of attention. Unfortunately, some of the photos, comments, and videos that catch attention typically aren't very flattering. Taking due care with social networking behaviors is critical if you want to keep a professional appearance and good reputation at work.

An ongoing debate is how much online time is too much online time before it negatively impacts productivity. People do notice if their colleagues spend more time social networking than focusing on work-related tasks.

Lack of punctuality

Lateness can be perceived as a lack of respect for other people's time. It is one thing to be occasionally late to work, but a pattern of consistent lateness is going to garner a less than desirable reputation for the person who is perpetually late for work or appointments.

Laziness

Laziness doesn't foster productivity. Employees who tend to slack off on the job, doing minimal work are less likely to be promoted, that's if they keep their jobs. An employer may be inclined to unload any dead weight with the goal to hire productive employees. Not to mention, getting fired for laziness will be hard to explain during interviews when trying to line up a new job. Bottom line, laziness can end up having far-reaching consequences.

Poor communication practices

Strong communication in the workplace is an important skill to possess. People who aren't careful with their communications could end up with others not feeling they are approachable or a team player. Or the dreaded foot in mouth syndrome could occur.

Foot-in-mouth syndrome

Foot-in-mouth syndrome can do some serious damage to a reputation. There are many ways foot-in-mouth syndrome can occur. It can emerge at:

• Small information office gatherings
• Large-scale organizational meetings
• In "reply all" responses for emails (either accidental or intentional)
• Conference calls or VTCs 
• Everyday conversation around the proverbial water cooler

People who don't think before they speak often find themselves running into trouble on the job and, over the course of time, this can do serious harm to one's reputation.

Professional relationships

Affairs, inappropriate networking or friendships, sexual harassment are all biggies when it comes to ruining a work reputation. These kinds of behaviors should be avoided at all costs; even if you aren't doing anything wrong, just the impression of moral wrongdoing can ruin a professional reputation.

Avoiding the above will greatly up your chances of keeping your professional appearance looking stellar.