Workplace Gossip: Where’s The Harm?
ningcontentAs you begin your career working in an entry level job you are likely to encounter the workplace gossip problem. Often called office politics, this little troublemaker has been the ruination of many promising careers. To avoid having your entry level job wind up on the chopping block due to workplace gossip, it is a good idea to understand how harmful it can be and why.
Workplace gossip is relaying information, true or not, person to person about a third person or even the company itself. Usually, this information is of a negative tone such as impending layoffs or terminations in the case of corporations or snippets of an individual’s personal life and derogative commentary on their job performance. As we stated before, this information may be truthful or it could be misconstrued observations or even outright lies. In any case, relaying such derogatory information is a dangerous proposition for those employed in entry level jobs.
The danger comes from the fact that you may be spreading a story that you firmly believe to be the truth, which in actuality is not true, or even worse, was intended as a confidential communication. The company is losing production because the employees are busy spreading the word about the latest gossip while the reputation of the third party is being tarnished by the story being told. It doesn’t take a lot of thinking to understand that eventually the story is going to get back to the individual who is being gossiped about or to the management of the company. When this happens, two things can start to happen.
First, the individual will get angry. They may quit the job over the humiliation of having a private matter disclosed in such a way or they may go looking for the source of the information whether it was true or false. If the story being spread is false, there are even laws to protect the individual and the source of the information can be subject to penalty. It is not unheard of for corporations to terminate entry level employees for being involved in such cases.
Secondly, the company can take action. If the gossip being spread is about the company or its private communications is false, you can bet the management will let a few heads roll. Companies don’t like it when their happy employees become disgruntled because some wise guy decided that the memo about a possible layoff next winter needed to be spread around as a plant closing in June. The wheel of blame gets shifted easily and anyone who relayed the message can be held accountable for it.
Final thought: If you want to keep your entry level job, keep your mind on your own business. Workplace gossip is destructive and costly to companies. By steering clear of office politics, you make yourself a more productive worker.
