Rumors and gossips can become a tragedy among companies. Most of them are not true, yet the damage it deals to the workforce is immeasurable. It would be wise to end rumors and gossips as soon as possible to avoid the workforce from losing morale and unity.
The impact of rumors and gossips can be costly if it isn’t dealt ASAP (the more you leave it alone, the worse it gets). People who are involved in it would be hurt and would need consoling in order to become stabilized again. Having a personal psychiatrist at your company can be a good thing.
Many employees can be lost and fired from rumors and gossips that there should be a rule regarding about it. It can disrupt the entire workforce if it is not stopped. Usually a person from the top should speak up about it and just end it right there. A rule that forbids it is a good way to prevent it.
Rumors and gossips can destroy morale and trust among co-workers. The best countermeasure is to prevent it so have a rule stating the severity of spreading it among the workforce. If you are victim or witness the tragedies of rumors and gossips, feel free to share your story using the comment box.
8 Comments
how true …
I am sometime facing not really rumours but “a feedback” from some my clients on my staff. and while often I get an honest and very valuable one, it is not rare to receive very biased too … and now filter it before causing any harm …
only few weeks ago I had a case when I got comment on work of one my staff who was traveling with client and these comments made me to start doubting the abilities of my employee… and then I found out that the problem was not incompetence of my staff, but lack of knowledge from the client … am so glad I took my time before following up on the original complain with my staff
I have experience of rumors spreading about me at the office. It steamed from them knowing nothing about me and my background because I often stayed to myself or few people.
Well David, the bestest thing of all is when your supervisor, the bottleneck between you and the board, takes you out to lunch and asks you to please confide in her, because she is concerned about you. My work wasn’t suffering any, but a bunch of really horrible stuff was going on in my personal life, which I never talked about and no-one knew anything about. I was just quieter and less ‘peppy’ than they wanted me to be.
Being an idiot, I actually told her that some things were going on in my personal life that were really upsetting me, and that I would try to be peppier. She pushed to know what they were. I mentioned one thing.
She went to the board and recommended I be terminated because, “Her personal life is a mess and her work is suffering significantly because of it.”.
At the next board meeting they asked me about it and my co-workers and technical supervisor told them that I was not having any problems with my job. I told them that I had been invited to confide in my office supervisor and had made the mistake of doing so, which I would never do again. They didn’t fire me and she hated my guts for the rest of the time I worked there.
Talk about rumors! That woman must’ve started a hundred of ‘em. The board finally fired her after they noticed that she was withholding information from them for her own purposes, and that the entire staff detested her.
Rumors are everywhere. My workplace is full of them. I mainly keep my mouth shut because I know the people who spread rumors most likely do so indiscriminately, so one about me is coming down the pike. And those who talk behind other’s backs consider you the “other” when you aren’t around.
With blogs blooming across the world, the impact of rumors will reach a new height.
Companies like Sun Microsystem offers free bloghosting for their employees, it would be interesting to find out whether it fuels more rumors and gossips.
The distinction between rumors and freedom of speech becomes blurry every single day.
On the other hand, it’s also useful to drive your stock price up!
It’s said that gossip is the most powerful force in the universe. Thus, it’s only natural that harnessing it is the biggest challenge for any kind of management.
Thanks for the feedback everyone! Thanks for the inputs and stories.
I’ve always hated such things as rumours at work. My belief is that people are not busy enough, if they have time to gossip during working hours. If the schedule were flexible, something like: get your job done for today and you may go home earlier, I bet many people would leave gossip aside, because they know that it’s better to hurry up and finish your work, then be free.