お疲れさまです。 — Thank you for your work / Hello (in workplace context). (Cultural · Communication, Polite to Colleague, JLPT N5)

Gesture & etiquette

Brief eye contact and small head nod (5-10 degrees) when passing in hallways. Soft tone — this is not a heavy greeting. If meeting in a room, slight bow (15 degrees). Use freely throughout the day; over-formal alternatives feel stiff between colleagues.

Otsukaresama desu' is the Swiss Army knife of Japanese workplace greetings. It works as: hello when passing colleagues in the hallway, acknowledgment when meeting in a meeting, thanks at the end of a phone call to a coworker, a closing in chat messages — and 'otsukaresama deshita' (past tense) at the end of the workday. Use it constantly. Do NOT use it with customers or external contacts — for outsiders, 'osewa ni natte orimasu' is the parallel greeting.