From new hires confused by our ‘wear anything’ dress code, to managers planning a team outing, our employees are familiar with my anti-policy viewpoint. They all seem to get it and I actually hear them reinforcing the mantra “Don’t be the person who forces us to create a policy” to others in the company who are about to do something that might be considered…well, stupid (aka. policy worthy).
The reason for my anti-policy stance? I think too many HR professionals avoid creative solutions and wash their hands of a problem by writing another policy. This policy then gets added to the already too long and rarely read employee handbook where it sits dormant until an employee gets sent to the principals HR office to be scolded.
A few weeks ago, I read an article in BusinessWeek that literally had me shouting profanities at the consultant whose advice to companies was to combat a problem with a policy. The reason I was so fired up was because, in typical policy form, the actual problem wasn’t even being solved.
Titled, “Gossip In the Workplace” the author defines gossip NOT as malicious talk about the personal lives of co-workers but as “talk between co-workers, managers, and executives about work-related matters to someone who can’t do anything about it”. She goes on to call employees who gossip “chickens” and “cowards” and attacks their integrity.
Her solution? Create a “gossip ban”; a “zero tolerance” policy of sorts which requires senior leadership to gather all employees together, stand in front of them and in a stern voice declare, “No more gossip.” In a final attempt to sugar coat the policy (and to completely insult the employees) the author suggests we “encourage employees to think of it as a game, with the prize being open communication and a positive work environment“.
Unless your employees are in kindergarten, my guess is that this solution isn’t going to solve the problem. Here’s why:
She defined “gossip” as being between co-workers and “about work-related matters”:
If employees are gossiping about work related matters, it doesn’t mean they’re “cowards” or “chickens”. It means they’re confused, unsure of something, or scared about how changes are going to impact them. Employees turn to each other (aka gossip) when HR and Senior Leadership haven’t done a good job of clearly communicating with employees and/or haven’t given them a safe forum to express their concerns.
Rather than suggesting a policy, this consultant should have coached the company on finding new ways to open communication and create feedback loops. They should fire her, hire me, and do some of the following:
- Coach managers on how to solicit feedback from employees.
- Require managers, as part of their performance reviews, to ask employees about their biggest roadblocks. This doesn’t mean asking while passing each other on the way to the bathroom. It means scheduling coffee with them, getting out of the office, and really asking them how things are going and what their concerns are.
- Hold managers accountable for removing those roadblocks and escalating issues to Senior Leadership.
- Find creative ways to use the biggest gossipers in the office to your advantage.
- Stop spending so much time behind your expensive desk and spend more time out there communicating with the employees.
- Consider that not all gossip is bad. New research shows that some gossip might actually be good for your employees and your company
If your gossip problem leans more towards being malicious, hurtful, and aimed at attacking the personal lives of your employees, then you’ll have to take more immediate measures to stop it. For those of us who just barely made it out of high school alive, we know how this type of gossip can hurt morale, productivity, and engagement, so your best bet is to act quickly to eliminate it. Even in this situation, consider ways that you can focus on “building a culture of respect by having zero tolerance for those who disrespect.”
While workplace gossip is bad, creating a deadbeat policy is even worse. What are some of the ways you’ve been able to work around creating even more policies in your organization?
Most gossip to isn’t because Sr. Leadership or HR haven’t communicated well. Its because people (all people) like to gossip.
They talk about people, sports, their manager, the company, the restaurant they ate at last night and got poor service, etc.
I agree to that making a policy about that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard and I would probably be gossiping about this at work if I wasn’t on vacation. Merry Christmas!
This is great advice. It is much better to work with employers and their managers about how to better communicate, get and use feedback and generally establish open 2-way lines of communications. But, as we all know, policies are easier. They allow us to avoid the “difficult” process of transparency. As an EAP and Workplace resource provider, we see more problems occuring due to lack of communications than anything else.
My grandmother use to preach, “Big minds talk about ideas; medium minds talk about things; small minds talk about people!” If a workplace culture breeds “small mindedness” rather than “big mindedness” no policy will change the will of the people. At the heart of gossip is triangulation – going to a third person with an issue, problem, situation or rumor rather than to THE source or the person who can do something about “it”. Organizations and teams with high a fear-factor breed triangulation. Leadership will say the most important asset of an organization or team is its people. The challenge is to walk this talk. If an organization wants to avoid triangulation, it needs to create a healthy, no-fear, high-trust, risk-tolerant culture that nurtures its people. A policy will not do it! It does begin at the top with a servant-leadership who teaches, speaks and models-the-way for others on how to be servant leaders. After all, leadership is everybody’s responsibility!
Marissa, kudos on a very interesting article.
You bring up an outstanding reference when you mention the research suggesting that not all gossip is necessarily bad. It should be mentioned that the study was a “two-year ethnographic research of workplace politics at a Midwestern elementary school where management was in transition”, so we have to keep that in mind when trying to draw large-scale correlations.
Over the last 12 months, I’ve grown increasingly interested in moving beyond the organizational chart (the “OrgChart”) of hierarchical boxes and lines showing positional authority. There are often informal networks as well, meaning the way that work is actually done, how knowledge is actually shared in pursuit of a common objective, etc.
Not only does knowledge flow through these informal networks, but so does gossip. The issue is performing an Organizational Network Analysis so that certain nodes (in this case, people) who are highly influential, yet invisible to the OrgChart, become visible.
Have you tried this at Rackspace? I’d love to discuss with you offline
Your Fellow FOT’er,
Josh
Thank you for taking on this subject. I was also appalled the article. If I treated my customers this way I wouldn’t have any customers.
Our team members are bright and articulate. I trust them to make better decisions than any policy. I feel sorry for this consultant. Working with a group of people that are so lacking in judgment must be an awful experience.
When will HR learn what most other parts of the company know. Be a part of the business and work with the company and not for HR.
A gossip ban….hmmmm, that is like creating a breathing ban or a blinking ban…
Wonderful post—
I have heard of what Josh is talking about…an “influential” org chart—and though I’ve never used one, the concept is really intreguing. Interestingly enough, the invisible members of your organization are usually in the top-third of the “influential” org chart. Many times they can be of great help to your HR dept or your organizational culture.
That puts an interesting spin on the whole “secretary” debate that raged on a few weeks ago. The new spin may be… “You know you are a secretary if you have more influence to your culture than HR…….” hmmmmmmmmmm
I love your article as it touches two important organizational disfunctions: rules and communication.
I strongly believe that very few rules are actually required. Except for the obvious ones (you should not steal company properties or disclose confidential material to a competitor) most self-organized teams can (and should) work without formal rules. The only rules to be followed should actually come from the people or team itself.
On the other hand, people have been gossiping for centuries – it brings people together. It is pretty much impossible to prevent it. Organization and management should be as transparent as possible to avoid speculations about their actions and let people exchange information.
On the other hand, I wrote something recently on the topic of rules (http://analytical-mind.com/2009/12/07/rules-arent-created-for-those-who-will-comply/) that sums up my perspective.
Great article. As a HR Director, I get so sick of hearing people say, “We need to write a policy” in response to one stupid action by one person. This usually happens because the manager is not willing to do his/her job and correct the behavior. They don’t want to have one of those awkward coaching discussion, where they suggest improvement. It is much easier to send out a memo to everyone. Even though, they know it will not be effective. Seriously! Grow up!
Policies are rarely ever useful. Most people use them as the legal defense crutch, but the reality is that a policy isn’t even worth the paper it’s written on unless it is uniformly enforced, which these ridiculous “no gossiping” policies never are.
Marissa – terrific article! Great leaders step up and resolve issues with those involved rather than taking the easy way out (just my opinion!) by creating a policy. Don’t hobble the organization with yet another policy when handling a specific situation is the answer.