When Swiss companies send trainees for a crash course in etiquette

Some companies in Switzerland want to teach their apprentices how to behave appropriately in a professional setting. Training institutions believe that such an education is becoming more and more necessary for younger generations.

“You can use perfume, but not too much,” says an apprentice painter. She is answering a question put to the class by an instructor, about whether deodorant and perfume are appropriate in everyday working life. “You should smell good and pleasant,” the apprentice reckons.

On the surface, deodorant and perfume have little to do with a painter’s profession. Nevertheless, Basel-based painter Marcel Fischer has sent all of his eleven apprentices to a workplace etiquette course.

“Our etiquette is how we appear from an external perspective,” says Domenico Forastefano, deputy managing director of the paint company. “If one of our employees rides the tram wearing our branded T-shirt, then whether or not they are well kempt has an influence on our reputation. Also important is whether an employee behaves politely and respectfully towards customers.”

Forastefano wants to revive what he considers to be basic principles: “the values that we perhaps experienced more of in the previous generation”.

Christian Rieder from the “fit4school” training institution says that many young people today are less familiar with rules of behaviour. He has seen this through working with various apprenticeship programmes, which is why the training institute decided to include etiquette courses in its programme.

“Young people often lack points of reference,” Rieder says. In the past, supervisors were typically better dressed than their employees. In a way, this made it easier for young people to have a visual connection to an authority figure. Flat hierarchies can be confusing. As an example, he points out the shift to less formal language when addressing superiors in the workplace. Previously, employees often addressed their superiors as “Mr.” or “Sir”, but this no longer necessarily applies in a flat hierarchy.

“Companies are reacting to some insecurities among apprentices,” says Marc Scherrer. He is responsible for training at canton Basel Country’s Chamber of Commerce and receives many enquiries from companies who take on trainees.

“They are often banal examples,” he says. Not coming to work in a tracksuit, greeting colleagues in a friendly manner in the morning, turning off the computer at the end of the working day, and so on.

Sometimes, external expert help is however needed. He reached out to “fit4School”, whose training course was subsequently highly appreciated. “We expected to have a demand, but not such a high demand,” Scherrer says.

The courses are popular with companies throughout Switzerland, says Rieder. However, he cannot give any concrete figures on attendance, as they have only just begun offering the course – and have been caught off guard by the demand.

However, he does share some insights into which points of etiquette go down better than others with apprentices taking the course:

Translated from German by Alexandra Andrist, SWI swissinfo.ch

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