How to Eliminate Gossip in the Workplace

Gossip in the workplace can make or break a company. If employees are too busy chatting about their lives or what happened on their favorite television there will be little time left for work.

How many times have you been in any business setting even retail shopping where you find the employees are too busy to give the customer their full attention? When this happens to me I want to just walk off the line.

Some offices have cubical desk space where 5 foot walls snap around a desk keeping gossip and eyes from wandering passed computer screens and weekly reports. There are office henchmen trolling isles behind telemarketers chatting away on telephones to make sure gossip is cut to a minimum the work gets done.

Working under such conditions isn't a pleasant work experience and the gossip always has a way of getting around the workplace anyhow. Most workspaces have telephones and intercoms and trolling henchman have no advantage over the gossip hounds when they have an opinion and want to be heard.

Think about how much time is wasted telling the same gossip story to everyone in the office. Most office workers tell the same story more than 5 times a day. If it takes that one employee 10 minutes to tell a story then by the end of the day almost 1 hour has been wasted. Remember, the time calculations mentioned above are a low guess; I'm giving all employees the benefit of the doubt. The actual gossip time wasted is most likely much higher than assumed.

If you have more than 1 employee who gossips, and you know there are more. These employees are gossiping for an hour a day as well. By the end of the week with only two of your employees gossiping, you loose 10 hours of productivity and still have to pay the employees for that time spent chatting about the new baby's poop or Yoda knows what!

I have managed an office for over 20 years and the only way of eliminating gossip in the workplace is to promote it. Yes, promote workplace gossip to your employees. Gossip isn't something that could ever be eliminated completely and as someone once said, 'if you can't beat them join them' I figure joining will get your foot in the door.

I'm always one to make changes when my foot gets in the door and if you follow this simple solution you will put an end to unproductive employees who gossip without having to replace them.

In the beginning of the work day, before everyone settles in with their coffee or whatever they consume while their tossing out the gossip have an informal meeting. Gather around with everyone who gossips, and if they gossip they will not miss an opportunity to hear their own voice and get all the gossip out of the way.

Encourage the employees to open up and get it all out before work begins. This informal meeting will only take about 15 to 20 minutes, therefore eliminating the countless hours of nonproductive gossip.

Promoting gossip will by no means eliminate gossip in the workplace all together, but it will eliminate the same story being told over and over again wasting valuable company time not to mention management headaches.