There's an easy way to tell whether your office has a gossip problem, said Heather Kephart, CPA: Listen for the whispering.
"There's no good reason to whisper unless you're in a library," said
Kephart, director of financial reporting at Koniag Inc., an Alaska
Native Corporation headquartered in Kodiak, Alaska. "It creates
distrust, it creates questions. You always wonder, 'Who are they talking
about?,' never, 'What are they talking about?' "
If it feels like your workplace has become a backdrop for palace
intrigue, there are steps you can take to quell the gossip. Identifying
why employees are gossiping can help you know which strategy to use.
If they're nervous about changes in the organization:
Be transparent. Nothing can quiet a rumor mill like an open
door. T.J. O'Neill, CPA, tax supervisor at Mueller Prost in St. Louis,
believes being forthright with employees can head off rumors before they
have a chance to grow.
"When a leadership team can answer the questions people are afraid to
ask, it squashes a lot of questions people are going to have," O'Neill
said. He suggests holding periodic meetings to share as much
behind-the-scenes information as possible — everything from revenue
projections to staffing decisions — to keep everyone up-to-date.
If they're having interpersonal conflicts:
Keep the culture positive. Letting everyone know who is
contributing to good work getting done can curb the backbiting and
distrust that Kephart says are the roots of discord among co-workers.
She recommends having regular sessions that give everyone on the team a
chance to recognize coworkers for their contributions.
"It takes a half hour to go around the room and have everyone express
something positive they want the rest of the group to know," Kephart
said. "You start to realize, hearing this month after month, that the
person you've been gossiping about or don't like actually does a lot of
good in the organization."
If they're new to the workplace:
Model behavior. Recent graduates who are just learning how
different the workplace is from their college campus sometimes get swept
up in gossip.
"Younger, more inexperienced staff get caught up in that because
maybe they haven't been in the professional environment that long,"
O'Neill said. "Work becomes social life, and it's hard to leave that
behind and start over in a more professional setting."
Building a one-to-one mentoring program can catch gossip before it
turns toxic, especially among employees. O'Neill says having a
relationship with a mentor can provide a new employee with a trusted
advocate. Building on that trust helps a younger employee see his or her
mentor as a first resource for concerns or grievances.
"If a mentor can demonstrate they are the immediate resource for
communicating concerns and difficulties to (and the mentor follows
through with results), office gossip will seem more and more
unproductive and unattractive to the mentee," O'Neill said.
If they're venting:
Make sure their problems are addressed. Sometimes employees
gossip because they simply want to vent. Encourage them to come to you
with specific, solvable workplace problems. Mike Nash, president of Nash
Consulting in Seattle, says that can encourage them to engage in actual
problem-solving rather than destructive backbiting.
However, if they're complaining about issues that aren't relevant to work, ask them to keep it out of the office.
They can "talk about the problem with their friend who doesn't work
here, with their spouse, with their therapist, with their dog," said
Nash. "Process it with someone else."
Coach the listeners
Another way to cut down on gossip is to focus on the employees who are enabling the gossip: the listeners.
"Sometimes we engage in gossip because we don't know how to set good
boundaries," Nash said of those listeners. "We feel that, to be a good
person, we need to be available for all of these angst-ridden ventings."
All employees should know that simply hitting eject on a negative conversation is an option.
"There is nothing to be gained by engaging in or perpetuating this
type of behavior. Period," said Diana Faison, leadership development
consultant and partner at Flynn Heath Holt Leadership in Charlotte, N.C.
The best solution, she says, is to train listeners to simply stop
listening.
To stop gossip cold, "you simply disengage," she said. "If you do not participate, it takes away all the fun."