Whats in a Name and Why it Matters in the Workplace

Whats in a Name and Why it Matters in the Workplace Unless youve changed it by deed poll your name is the one given to you by your parents at birth, so how important is it to get it right? My name Ushma is a traditional Hindu name which my parents gave me.   It means warmth, but Im always cold, so slightly ironic! My dad wanted a simple, modern name which is easy to say and hoped people would only use Ushma to address me. In fact, he would get really offended if people did get it wrong or shortened it to Ush or Ushie. I think its fairly easy to say, you just say it as its spelled Ush- ma. There are no silent letters or hidden pronunciations  but youd be surprised how many people still get it wrong. So how important is your name in the workplace? Well to me its extremely important. I use it all the time in a professional capacity and so I expect people to get it right, I dont even mind if you ask me how to say it. In fact, I would rather you do that, then got it wrong. So how do you deal with someone getting your name wrong? In my early days as a newspaper reporter, in my mainly-white office, I got really upset that my work colleagues would often get my name wrong but then wouldnt make any attempt to correct themselves or ask me how to say it. This prompted me to fire off an email with the subject Correct pronunciation of my name to the entire newsroom staff. Thankfully it worked! Nobody was offended and my name was pronounced correctly (mostly). But should we be getting upset at work colleagues getting our names wrong?  Darain Faraz, LinkedIn Careers Expert, says: Your name acts as a unique identifier, differentiating you from most other people,  and is ultimately the label to your ‘professional brand’ in the workplace. Get that wrong and you may already be on the backfoot. At best a mangled name pronunciation can come across a bit lazy â€" at worst, a tad rude. For me, having a slightly “exotic” name means you constantly have to deal with it being botched  (I recently wrote a  LinkedIn post  about it here), I’d suggest trying to get your head around the pronunciation before meeting people.  I’m mightily impressed when people get my name right in the first instance. And first impressions last â€" particularly in a work context. Here at the Undercover Recruiter/Link Humans headquarters, we are a very multi-international bunch.  I asked our  team to tell me some of the wrong names theyve been called. Take our boss Jorgen, who is Swedish. His name is pronounced Yur-gunn and youd be forgiven for getting this wrong if you didnt know that in Swedish the letter J is pronounced as a Y. But with that in mind, surely being called Jaw-gun is probably the worst hes been called, right? Wrong! Jorgen Sundberg says: Jordan, Goran, Jorge, George, Nigel (yep) I usually let it go unless were doing a podcast recording and Id hate for them to call me the wrong thing for 30 mins. And its not just his name that people get wrong, it seems Undercover Recruiters sister company Link Humans trips people up too. Jorgen told me its been called  Humanlinks, Links Human, Think Human, and even LinkedIn! So far all these names havent been English so there is room for error when it comes pronouncing them. So youd think Andy Partridge, who is Head of People, probably hasnt experienced anyone getting his name wrong. Well, not according to Andy: Ive been called Alan Partridge a few times, and had people email me. I tend to let it go as people are horrified if i point it out and super embarrassed. Quite rightly too! (Non-British readers may want to Google him!) Our Advertising Guru Chris Kedwell was given an unlikely promotion: My old Polish next door neighbour in Toronto used to call me Christ. Jon Gregory, who is a career trainer and writer of Win-that-job.com has these useful tips to correct your colleagues: If someones name is hard to spell, or indeed to pronounce, always make the effort to get it right. It shows professionalism, theyll be forever grateful, youll stand out from many of your peers, your relationship will strengthen and who knows where that may ultimately lead you? Getting someones name wrong the first time may be just unlucky, especially if youre rushed and the dreaded auto-correct kicks in. As soon as you realize, go back to them,  apologize and resolve never to make the same mistake again. Never risk leaving a potentially open wound to quietly fester in the background. Repeatedly getting someones name wrong never bodes well for the future of your relationship. At the subconscious level, youre repeatedly demonstrating you couldnt care less about them. As a Jon I suffer from this hugely. Even months and years after relentlessly signing off as Jon, some people still address emails and messages to John and spell my name incorrectly in programmes, on agendas, and in online articles. How hard can it be? I presume theyre either, dim, lazy or just disrespectful. Theyre always the second choice in my book. Oh and if you want to know the names Ive been called, here are just some of them: Kufma Usha Osama Usma Usharmar Manisha!! (yes really) Ishmael