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Introduction

When should you apologise at work, and what's the best way to do it? In this episode of Office English, Pippa and Phil talk about the language of workplace apologies and if it's ever wrong to apologise at work.

TRANSCRIPT

Note: This is a transcript of a spoken conversation and is not a word-for-word script.

Phil
What's the worst thing you've had to apologise for at work? 

Georgie
Ooh, I think the worst thing I had to apologise for at work was this one time I went on holiday. I forgot to do one thing, and it meant that everyone had to pick up the slack. Which means to kind of, do the work that I hadn't done. And I felt really bad.

Neil
I think the kind of things that you really need to apologise for at work are genuine mistakes that have had a bad impact. I think you need to accept that you made that mistake and say sorry.

Pippa
In this episode of Office English, we're talking about making apologies and taking responsibility for things at work.

Phil
Hello, welcome back to Office English, your podcast guide to the world of work. I'm Phil.

Pippa
And I'm Pippa. Find a transcript for this episode on our website bbclearningenglish.com

Phil
OK, so we've just heard from some of the BBC Learning English team about things they've had to apologise for at work. What things, Pippa, do you need to remember when it comes to workplace apologies and taking responsibility for things?

Pippa
Well, when you take responsibility for something, that kind of just means that you acknowledge that you've done something wrong or that it's your fault. And I think it's good to do this before something becomes a problem.

Phil
There is an interesting question of when you should apologise for something, because it may be that something genuinely isn't your fault. It can also be tricky if you're apologising on behalf of your company, because it might be that other people in charge have got different ideas about whether it's appropriate or not.

Pippa
Yeah. Sometimes you can take responsibility without apologising. You can acknowledge that something's gone wrong without having to kind of say sorry. And this will depend on the culture of your workplace as well. There'll be some workplaces where you wouldn't apologise a lot, and it would be seen as wrong to apologise. There would be other workplaces where it would be seen as really rude or detrimental to you, to not apologise for mistakes.

Phil
OK. So, let's look at some scenarios. So, this first one, imagine you're at work. Your manager asked you to prioritise a task that is really important but really boring. You've spent too much time on a task that you enjoy more, and you've missed the deadline for the important but really boring task. How would you apologise for that, Pippa?

Pippa
If it were something less serious and my manager's a nice person, I might say something like, "sorry, I let this slip" and 'let this slip' means I just forgot or I wasn't as organised as I should have been, but it's more informal. But if I wanted to be a little bit more formal, I could say something like, "I won't let this happen again". And that means that I'm aware that there was a clear problem and I'm going to do something about it.

Phil
Another thing that's really important when you're taking responsibility for something, is to say you understand why something's a problem, that you get it, you understand what you did, which is obviously going to help you not do it again.

Pippa
OK. Let's look at another situation. So, you're working on a project for a client this time. And it's become obvious that you made a mistake when working out how long the project would take. So you're going to miss your deadline. What would you do, Phil?

Phil
Well, this is a situation where we need to apologise because we've done wrong, but also, we want to communicate as early as possible so we can try and fix it. So, I might start off by saying "I need to give you a heads up", and a heads up is like a warning. just you're saying, 'there's a problem, we need to look at this again'.

Pippa
Yeah. And here is probably where you want to take responsibility for the mistake. You know that it was you. There's no confusion here. So you could say something like "this is entirely our fault" or we "should have..." and then explained what you should have done differently. And that's just showing the client that you're taking it seriously and you're not trying to blame somebody else for the problem.

Phil
Yeah. Another way you can say this nice little expression, you say "that's on us" or "that's on me". You're saying 'it's my fault, that was down to me, I'm taking responsibility'. And then, of course, you should offer to fix things so you can say something like, "what can we do to make this right?"

Pippa
Yeah. Or you could kind of already come with a plan in mind of how you might fix things. So you might say, "I want to make amends for this. I've already thought about what we're going to do".

Phil
OK. Now, our next situation: you've been preparing something for your manager. And let's imagine it's a manager that maybe you don't know that well, or you don't have an amazing relationship with them. And a supplier has let you down at the last minute, which means you're unable to meet your deadline. Now, in this scenario, it's not really your fault because there's probably not much you could have done to prepare for this. So, how are we going to deal with this? Should you apologise for this when it's clearly the supplier's fault and not yours?

Pippa
I probably wouldn't apologise in this situation, but I would kind of suggest that there's bad news. So I might say something like, "unfortunately". And then explain the situation. Or maybe say, "I'm afraid that the supplier has let me down".

Phil
Yes. And you might explain the consequences of this. So, they didn't deliver the product on time which led to, or which meant that. And so, you're explaining the consequences of this problem.

Pippa
You can also show that you've done your job properly. So you could say this was unavoidable or unforeseeable would be another word to use, meaning that you've planned everything right. It's just that this thing went wrong, and you couldn't expect that to happen.

Phil
Yeah, and an expression, you'll often hear at work or in companies, things like "we regret" or "I regret". So yeah, we use 'regret' when you're saying, you're saying you're unhappy about something, you're showing that, you know, it's not a nice situation, not a good situation. But crucially, you're not saying that it's your fault.

Pippa
And all of these phrases will depend on who you're talking to and what your workplace is like. So, we mentioned this might be a manager that you don't work closely with. If it's somebody that you work closely with, then you can probably be a little bit more candid. And that means a little bit more yourself. And so, if your natural inclination is to apologise, even though it's not your fault, then you maybe could in that situation, because in some workplaces, if you're just sort of trying to blame other people, even though it's not your fault. If you're always kind of trying to distance yourself from a problem, it can kind of look a bit odd.

Phil
And I regret to say that that's it for this episode of Office English. Unfortunately, we've run out of time, but we'll be back next week to talk about another aspect of business English.

Now try this...

English in a Minute: Ways to say sorry part 1

English in a Minute: Ways to say sorry part 2

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