Handshakes are a universally accepted way to meet and greet in business social gatherings and meetings. A firm handshake gives a good impression, and an intention to have peace with each other.
A handshake is also a popular non-verbal behaviour when a business deal is closed. It was like “thank you for accepting my proposal” or “thank you for the opportunities to collaborate or work together”.
A firm palm to palm handshake
Practice a firm, palm to palm followed by a decisive release kind of handshake. You will need this after the COVID is over. Avoid bone crusher, wet fish, dead fish, fingertips handshakes. Also, when your hand is cold, warm it up by rubbing your hands together before a handshake.
History of handshake
According to history.com, one of the earliest depictions of a handshake is found in a ninth-century B.C. relief, which shows the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III pressing the flesh with a Babylonian ruler to seal an alliance.
You can read the full article about history of handshake here.
No handshake during COVID pandemic
During this COVID pandemic, a handshake is deemed dangerous. Scientifically, it is because of the possible COVID transmission from one person to the other and can spread like crazy.
Handshake will be back to life
You know what? COVID is not going to last forever on this planet. Face to face business meetings will come back to life at some point in the future and the popular handshake way to meet and greet in business gatherings will come back to life too.
Just look at the history of the previous pandemics, for example, the H1N1 Swine flu pandemic occurred between 2009 to 2010. The main route of swine flu virus spread between humans is exposure to the virus when someone infected sneezes or coughs, and the virus enters one of the potential mucous surfaces, or when a person touched something infected with the virus and subsequently touch their nose, mouth, and surrounding areas. This is how COVID was spread too.
Ask yourself? Before the COVID outbreak, did you shake hand with other people? I guess your answer is YES. With the COVID vaccines rolling out rapidly worldwide as I am writing this article, I believe COVID will no longer control how we want to live our lives and greet people in business settings.
Be ready to meet and greet with a firm handshake
Let be positive about the future and practice your firm handshake for when we are ready to meet face to face for business.
In the meantime, we embrace online meeting via Zoom, Whatapps, Face Time, Messenger, Skype, Google Meet and so on. We cannot do a handshake but we can smile and wave when we meet on screen. This is a popular non-verbal body language to welcome others in virtual meetings.
If you are running a business through a limited company, remember to deliver your confirmation statement and company accounts promptly to Companies House. It is important to maintain your company status “Active” with Companies House during this COVID pandemic. Your customers will lose confidence in your products or services if they see your company status is a “proposal to strike off” or “dissolved”.
