Five Steps for Discouraging Employee Gossip from Sabotaging Productivity

By Priscilla Kohl, HRTools Staff Writer

Employers Need Workplace Camaraderie and Productivity
Do you wonder how many innovative business ideas or solutions are sabotaged because of employee gossip?

Workplace gossip can undermine innovation, productivity, creativity and camaraderie. It can also destroy relationships and careers and cause higher turnover rates. When employees gossip about customers or clients, it can jeopardize a company’s image and reputation.

While it is impossible for employers to be aware of all employee gossip, steps can be taken to discourage it.

First, Consider the Reasons Behind the Gossip
If employers wish to create a workplace culture that encourages goodwill among its employees, it is wise to initially consider basic human-behavioral tendencies and needs.

Dr. Francis T. McAndrew, a social psychologist who specializes in environmental and evolutionary psychology, studies the evolutionary psychology of gossip. In his paper titled “Can Gossip Be Good?” published in Scientific American Mind Magazine (found online at www.SciAmMind.com), McAndrew said, “The aspect of gossip that is most troubling is that in its rawest form, it is a strategy used by individuals to further their own reputations and selfish interests at the expense of others.”

Anyone who has lived through high school and is still breathing knows that gossip is basically used to gain attention or importance. Gossip can also be used to gain political control; negative advertising during political campaigns provides plenty of evidence for that.

An out-of-control workplace gossiping machine can overpower and deflate even the strongest and bravest of American-enterprise champions. Many simply keep their innovative, problem-solving ideas to themselves or walk away thinking, “Who needs this?”

An American productivity survey reports that 64 percent of workers admit to gossiping at work, according to Dr. Mark A. Zigarelli, dean of the Regent University School of Business and author of nine books including Ordinary People, Extraordinary Leaders. Zigarelli defines gossip as, “discrediting talk about someone who is not present.” Many human beings are prone to that tendency even when simply spreading useless truths.

Preventing Fires is the Best Strategy
Employee gossip is as common as an office Super Bowl betting pool. Like most human behaviors, gossiping has degrees of harm; some is malicious and some is harmless. When gossip interferes with or restrains productivity, hurts the bottom line and professional relationships, business owners should be aware of how it starts and how to prevent it from causing irreversible damage.

Here are five steps that employers can take to develop and maintain a workplace culture that will discourage harmful employee gossip:

Encourage workers to be open, creative and to respectfully speak the truth, especially in group settings. This is a subtle point: If people feel safe and rewarded by speaking candidly and openly, they are less likely to take conversations offline and in secret. When this happens, an insidious form of gossip can develop that takes on a life of its own.It’s not hard to imagine that some employees are cautious or reticent about “speaking the truth” for fear of career suicide. Proactive business leaders should see themselves as heads of creativity mills. By encouraging daring and creative thinking and empowering open expression, employers are often rewarded with dynamic ideas that turn into solutions and higher productivity.
Realize, treasure and honor your greatest assets, your people. Say “no” to workplace situations that result in paradoxical conflicts. For example, when a high-level individual who happens to own a senior title is allowed to denigrate a lower-level employee, an unofficially strong message takes hold. Others in the organization learn that title trumps employee dignity at the expense of its greatest assets, its people. In order to save face or recover personal honor and self esteem, employees may start gossiping and recruiting others to take sides. To be successful and prosperous, employers need a “we’re all in this together,” big-picture attitude. Employees who indulge in malicious gossip, which is inherently unproductive, can sabotage the show.
Do whatever possible to dissuade cliques from taking over. When people feel like they are outsiders or not accepted by little exclusive groups, some may start aligning themselves in unproductive ways. Consciously or subconsciously these exclusive groups can start pitting one against another. Also, with the growing diversity occurring in the workplace, there can be a natural tendency for cliques to form. In fact, a Zogby poll released last year indicates that workplace bullying is a growing problem in today’s business environment, which can also pose legal liabilities for employers. Obviously employers cannot force employees to “bond” and/or socialize after hours. However, legitimate business reasons can prompt respectful and non-threatening interactions at work. For instance, business managers can host casual brainstorming sessions with various teams or departments within the organization. They can start meetings with relevant and non-threatening “small talk” to begin fostering an environment of trust and camaraderie.
Communicate and take charge of rumors. Remember you want to successfully run a creativity mill, not a rumor mill gone amuck; so make sure you communicate as much company information as possible and as soon as possible. When employees feel left in the dark, they start making up their own stories, which can be far from the truth. In some business situations, gossip can be more compelling than the truth. Keep your employees updated and hold regular employee meetings.
Use power, influence and peer pressure to perpetuate self-enforcement. Regulating human behavior at work is always a challenge for even the most skilled of HR professionals. Mature adult employees generally resent anyone dictating, particularly in a cavalier manner, how they should approach social relationships.However, business leaders have the power and influence to shape their workplace culture. Employee communications can include written and verbal expectations and reminders of acceptable conduct in the workplace. In an ideal environment, adult employees should be expected to use a self-enforcement approach with regard to inappropriate workplace behaviors, including employee gossip. Peer pressure is another powerful force that can influence self-enforcement.

In a recent TheLadders.com survey, 81.2 percent of senior executives surveyed said that they “find a foul-mouthed colleague unacceptable to work alongside in the office.” This same survey found that 69.7 percent of senior executives said that they would fire someone for “bad office manners.”

So just as it is unacceptable to curse or use obscene language in the workplace, employers can set the tone for making it similarly unacceptable to gossip about co-workers. This is what leadership is all about.

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