Chasing people: Office English episode 3

What happens when you ask someone to do something at work

and they haven't done it?

I feel OK about it and I always start really polite.

But, obviously, if someone doesn't reply and then you need it

and you have to chase them again and again.

So when I have to chase people up at work I don't mind,

because generally it's just something they've forgotten about

or they've missed the email.

But, yeah, it can get a bit awkward

if you have to do it over and over again and you're not sure why.

Today on Office English we're talking about how to remind people to do something

in a polite and professional way.

Hello. Welcome to Office English from BBC Learning English. I'm Pippa.

And I'm Phil.

And this is your podcast guide to the language of the world of work.

Today we're talking about how to remind somebody

to do something if they haven't responded to you,

or how to 'chase people up' at work.

Yep, as we heard at the start of the programme,

we spend a lot of time and energy at work reminding other people to do things.

So, Pippa, what do we mean, when we say we need to 'chase people up' at work?

Yeah, so we don't literally mean to chase people.

We just mean to go back to them on email or speak to them again

to ask them one more time 'can you please do this thing' or 'can you reply to me?'

or send whatever you've asked them to do.

So it's basically reminding somebody to do something.

We use the phrase 'chase people up'.

Actually, when you're chasing people up,

it can be quite important to think about who you're chasing up,

because we'd probably chase different people in different ways.

Mm, yes, in the UK, where we work,

people tend to be very polite and friendly when they first chase someone up.

Of course, you've then got the problem that they might not respond again,

so you might have to send another reminder and then another reminder,

so you might change your language each time.

And today we're going to talk about

each time you have to remind someone about a task

and how you can change your language to convince them to get the job done.

So we'll start by talking about the first time

we need to remind someone of something.

What phrases can we use, Pippa?

Yes, so if I was sending an email to someone

to chase them up or remind them about a task,

I would probably start by saying 'Just wondering if you saw my last email'.

What do you think about that, Phil?

Oh, yeah. This is one that I would definitely use a lot.

We talked about how, in the UK, people aren't always direct

and this is perhaps an example of this.

It might be I know you've seen the email, I know I sent the email,

but 'Just wondering if you'd seen my last email',

cos you're allowing for the possibility that they might not have seen it.

Yeah, it... It's less direct and it's quite friendly.

It's quite a nice way just to remind people

that is very clear what you want them to do.

And then I might continue by saying, 'Have you had a chance to...'

and then talk about the task I've asked them to do.

So that's asking them quite directly,

you know, 'Have you had a chance to look at the report?'

but I'm asking it politely.

I'm showing I understand that they're busy

and I might not be the most important person in their day.

But 'Have you had a chance to...'

is a good way to remind somebody about a task that you've asked them to do.

And you're accepting the possibility

that it might have been difficult for them to do it or difficult to find time,

so yeah, in that way you're, I guess,

showing more respect to the person that you're emailing.

Mm, yeah. And a final kind of polite, friendly first reminder thing you can do

is you can say something like

'If you are able to send it by next week, that would be great'.

So there you're giving them a deadline, a clear deadline,

of when you would like the task completed by, but it's polite still,

so you're still giving that impression that you understand their time

and you're almost asking them, rather than telling them.

Of course, it can be difficult if someone is chasing you up, depending who they are,

if they send something like that which seems quite friendly and quite vague.

If they're an important person, if it's a really important task,

they might be using 'If you're able to... that would be great',

but they actually mean 'Do it by then, or else'.

Yes, that's the problem with this friendly, polite way of working

that we have in the UK — sometimes it's difficult to know.

OK, so let's imagine that we've sent that first reminder.

We've sent an email off politely reminding somebody to do something,

but we still haven't had a response.

What do we do next, Phil? How could we change our language slightly?

OK, well, here's one.

You could say 'I wanted to remind you about...'

and then you'd explain the thing that you're chasing about underneath.

Yeah, I like that. So that's a bit firmer. It's more direct.

This time we're not asking somebody, you know, 'Have you had a chance to...',

we're saying 'I wanted to remind you about...',

so it's a statement rather than a question.

We're not asking, we're telling somebody to do something this time.

But it's interesting cos we still have 'wanted'.

We've got it in the past there, which kind of makes it a bit more distant.

There's still a little bit of politeness there,

but it's a lot firmer than the ones that we looked at before.

Yeah, it's definitely politer than saying, 'Do this or else' as we said.

What's the next phrase, Phil?

'Please could you finish this by...' the end of tomorrow or whatever time.

Yes, that's nice. So it's still a request.

We're still not telling them rudely to do something,

but we are being very clear now about the deadline,

'Please could you do this by...' this time tomorrow,

then you clearly say that's what needs to happen.

Yeah, there's not really any space there

for something different to happen, is there?

It's very clear what needs to be done...

— Mm. — ..and when.

And the next one is 'Otherwise...' and, of course, you would use that to introduce

the consequences of something not happening.

This is where it starts to get quite serious, I think, at this point, isn't it?

Mm, yeah.

It might sometimes be right to explain

what's going to happen if they don't do the thing.

We don't really want to threaten somebody at this point,

depending on how serious it is that they haven't responded,

but it might be good to explain the urgency.

So we could say 'Otherwise...' we might lose this client,

so we are reminding somebody of what might happen

if they don't do what we've asked them to do.

That's just another way to kind of make it seem more serious and more direct

rather than our language we had in our first email that was very friendly,

really just asking 'Oh, would you mind if you...',

'If you have the time, please could you help me with this important thing?'

Right, Pippa, we've tried all those options and we still haven't heard back.

Are there any other phrases we could try?

Well, this is where it starts to get difficult.

So we could just try a different way of communicating with them.

So we could pick up the phone.

We don't do that very often these days at work,

or we certainly don't do that much in our day-to-day work.

But phoning someone or mentioning it at a meeting, going to their desk in the office

to say 'I don't know if you've seen my emails,

'but I would really like your report by tomorrow'.

You can then 'follow up' with them on an email.

That means just send an email to say I just spoke to you about this.

And then another thing we could do is we could consider 'escalating' the problem.

Now, 'escalating' is sort of a business term we use

to say we are going to involve someone more senior,

so you might 'copy in' on an email a manager.

That means you send the email also to your manager or their manager.

That will really depend on your workplace, what the request is,

what the consequences are of them not having done the thing.

But it could be useful.

If they're not responding to you, maybe they'll respond to your boss.

Yeah, it very much depends on the culture of the place you're working, doesn't it?

And also how it's done.

It might be done in a helpful way

to make sure that a problem doesn't get overlooked

or sometimes you see people doing it in very cynical ways

of just adding lots of names into an email which is perhaps slightly different.

And then the final thing we can do is be clear about when our final email is.

OK? When our final reminder is.

So I might send an email saying something like 'This is a final reminder about...'

or I might use the phrase 'This is your last chance...'

to contribute to the report.

What do you think about that, Phil?

Yeah. Again, it's very good, cos it's very clear.

So it's, it's just a way to make sure everyone knows,

they know the urgency of the situation, they perhaps know possible consequences.

Mm, yeah. And we should say that, in some workplace cultures,

you would probably be that direct in your first reminder.

So some places don't have this strange situation

where we have to pretend that we didn't send an email

and remind someone 'Did you see my email?' and all these questions.

But generally, in the UK and probably also in the US,

there is this kind of culture of politeness and informality

that means we don't send someone a final reminder straight away

if they haven't done something.

So we've learned some phrases

to try and persuade people to reply and get the job done.

So let's hear again from our BBC Learning English colleagues.

OK, so when I have to chase people up at work, I don't mind,

because generally it's just something they've forgotten about

or they've missed the email.

But, yeah, it can get a bit awkward

if you have to do it over and over again and you're not sure why.

Sometimes it's more difficult to chase somebody up

that you work with on a regular basis.

It's a bit difficult with that difference between being friendly

and being businessy cos you actually need something.

So, Phil, Beth was talking there

about the balance between being friendly and being businessy, or professional.

What do you think about that when it comes to chasing people up?

It does make it harder, doesn't it? It means you can't...

It's a lot harder to break out the final reminder language, or to use that.

But, yeah, that's why I think, in general, we've talked a lot in this series

about having the balance between being friendly and polite and professional.

So you always want to be friendly and polite,

but you also want to stay professional at work.

It's certainly very frustrating when people don't get back to you,

especially when you need their response to get on with your work.

But hopefully the phrases we've discussed today

will help you remain professional when you chase your colleagues or clients.

That's it for this episode of Office English.

Remember, you can find courses and activities

to help with your English at work on our website, BBC Learning English dot com.

Next time, we're talking about phone calls, instant messages and video calls,

and the language we need to communicate well at work.

Until then, bye!

Bye!