Gossips at Workplace
Gossips at Workplace
Introduction
Work place gossip could be elaborated as informal communication behavior which occurs at the work place. This information can be true or false. According to Brady et al., (2017) workplace gossip is defined as informal conversation or evaluation (Positive or Negative) about the member beyond the person's hearing typically involved with unproven details.
Gossip affects to the organization in good or bad ways. It is normal that employees get together and exchanging work related and nonwork related information to each other. Mostly non related and unproven information have been spreading widely in every corner of the organization verbally and written. As per the Kurland and Pelled, (2000) work related gossip is information that focuses on the subjects work life, job performance and carrier progression. Nonwork related gossip focuses on personal events such as marriage, illness or divorce. It would appear that the nonwork related gossip is typically and more rapidly believed than the work-related gossip.
Negative Impact on Gossip
even though there are several better consequences in work related gossip, most of the instant nonwork related gossip badly effects to the organizational performance.
- Gossip occurs misunderstanding among the workers and creates conflicts rapidly.
- Gossip will destroy the trust between each other and leads to disputes at work.
- Gossip generates the miscommunication. Therefore, organizational goals and objectives will not be achieved as predicted.
- Gossip will divide the team work. Due to this productivity will come down.
- Gossip leads to delay in work. Therefore, worker efficiency will come down.
- Gossip will influence higher absentees as employees under the mental stress.
- Gossip will encourage the good employees to leave from the organization. Therefore, Organization will start to collapse.
HRM Role in Mitigation of Gossip
As mentioned previously there are many negative impacts on organization due to gossips. Therefore, to sustain the organizational performance and harmony among the employees, elimination of gossipers and gossip pipeline is very important.
Human resources management could lay undermentioned steps to minimize gossip at work place.
- Do not pass and participate to the gossip. If you come across an interesting story, stop going from you to others.
- Do not listen to the gossip. Therefore, gossipers will understand that you are not interested on it.
- Avoid the gossipers. They will understand that you are ignoring them.
- When you hear a gossip, say something good about it and make negative to a positive.
- Do not share your private information with others at the workplace. Keep your private life with your family and close friends.
- Do not hesitate to embarrass gossipers in public.
- Do not be afraid to report your superiors about the gossipers in open forum.
International Circumstance
Research on Twitter
In 2018 United State research team headed by Sinan Aral had conducted investigation on how gossips diffuse on Twitter. After analysis the details from 2006 to 2017, they found 126,000 gossip stories twitted by around 3 million people more than 4.5 million times. Also, fake gossips are 70% more than the true stories.
False information spread faster and broader than the true information. As per the Sinan Aral " we found that false news more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information. Whereas false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise in replies, true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy and trust".
References
Abbajay, M., 2021. The Danger of Workplace
Gossip. [Online]
Available at: https://www.careerstonegroup.com/
[Accessed 30 April 2021].
Brady, D.,
Brown, D. & Liang, L., 2017. The reconceptualization and measurement of
workplace gossip. Moving beyond assumptions of deviance, Volume 102,
pp. 1-25.
Corbin, J.
& May, J., 2012. MRSC. [Online]
Available at: https://mrsc.org/Home/Stay-Informed/MRSC-Insight/Archives/What-to-Do-About-Gossip-in-the-Workplace.aspx
[Accessed 30 April 2021].
EDGE, C.,
2020. CUTTING EDGE. [Online]
Available at: https://cuttingedgepr.com/deal-with-rumors-grapevine/
[Accessed 30 April 2021].
Kurland, N.
& Pelled, L., 2000. Toward a model of gossip and power in the workplace. The
Academy of Management Review.
Interesting blog article. Author well explained about the topic.
ReplyDeleteMy point of view is, that every workplace has gossip, there is no way to avoid it. Word "gossip" typically creates a negative impact in our minds. But gossip doesn't always be a bad thing. Workplace gossip gives worth insight on how workers think, feel and behave. It's mostly the inner look to an individuals personality. Specially in high stress work environments, gossips will help up to brighten the moods of the employees which moves to a high productivity.
ReplyDeleteHR leaders should assertively deal with gossip to create a balanced work culture.
Interesting topic to deal with.
The author has discussed about the interesting topic and he has attached with the topic till the end of the article.
ReplyDeleteIf you work in an environment where employees freely communicate and socialize, it's easy to learn intimate details about your co-workers' personal and work life. If you're not careful, you could find yourself caught up in workplace gossip. The effects of workplace gossip are mostly negative, especially for the person who is the subject of the gossip. The only way to reduce the negative effects of workplace gossip is to help silence it (Imani, N.D.).
False information spread faster and broader than the true information . As explain in the blog article , for gossip pipeline is very important to sustain the organization performance .
ReplyDeleteA common occurrence in all workplaces well described by the author. Even though it’s not encouraged workplace gossip is mostly neutral and negative gossip is more common than the positive ones. It would have been complete if a few “positive” effects of gossip such as employee bonding, interpersonal trust, sharing of work related ideas during gossip sessions were mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThe negativities and the measurements taken by the HR to mitigate the spread of the gossips have been nicely portrayed by the author.The spread of the gossip depends according to the community it circulates.If the listener is a open minded person, he has the eligibility to prevent the spread of the gossip.Gossip led path to many tragic circumstances even it affects on the productivity of an organization.So in an organization the the circulation of gossip should be irradiated for the betterment of the organization.
ReplyDelete