Re-boot workplace culture for efficiency

Workplace gossip can create a negative climate. When left unchecked, it can threaten organizational culture and effectiveness and can lead to loss of productivity and good employee morale. Creating a positive workplace culture, free of undesirable behaviour by employees is essential for a performance-oriented workforce.

Gossip is rampant in most workplaces. Sometimes, it seems as if people have nothing better to do than gossip about each other. They talk about the company, their co-workers, managers - the real list is unimaginable.

Domino effect

They frequently take a partial truth and turn it into a whole speculative truth. Lunch room talk, exchange of emails or new instant messaging on your computer, corridor talks or even wash room chats provide good breeding grounds for this bad behaviour that doesn't help anyone.

Gossip is what transforms a culture of recognition into a culture of doubt, which results in an unpleasant domino effect: decreased productivity and employee morale - especially for the better employees.

Some might say this is natural human behaviour.

I agree. It's natural, that it exists. But, is it acceptable? No. Not if you want to build a high-performing and sustainable business that has engaged employees and customers at its heart to deliver results.

The key is to know when the gossip is out-of-hand. You need to act if the gossip is: disrupting the workplace and the business of work, hurting employees' feelings, damaging interpersonal relationships or affecting employee motivation and morale beyond tolerable levels.

No-nonsense culture

If you assertively deal with gossip, you will create a work culture and environment that does not support gossip - one that really promotes efficiency.

If you are fretting about how to build a more engaged workforce, how about asking yourself if you see evidence of politics, cliques, gossip, in-fighting, jealousy and people talking about each other rather than to each other in your workplace.

If you do, then perhaps ridding your company of this behaviour is a good place to start. No amount of good work in other areas will make up for a toxic culture. With my experience this has to be tackled in isolation.

True, we have all been subject to gossip at work and is almost impossible to avoid - until you realize how harmful gossip threatens corporate culture, and eventually transforms the workplace into a culture of doubt - and must be reconciled for employees to drive results for the organization's success.

Time for a culture reboot? See how much value your business loses as a result of this toxic cultural element.