Originally Published in Today’s Veterinary Business, April 2018
“Maria’s skirt is awfully short, isn’t it? And she sure doesn’t have the figure to pull that off!”
“You’re not going to believe what I heard about our new client . . .”
“Did you hear who is getting divorced? You’re not going to believe what happened!”
“We’re not getting bonuses this year because of what happened between Fred and Susan.”
“Did you hear why Martin got that raise? And did you hear how much it was?”
Statements like this are heard in workplaces around the country, including veterinarian offices, with victims of gossip being managers, coworkers, clients – and anyone else the gossiper runs across during his or her day. While gossip can contain kernels of truth, stories shared are often blown out of proportion, and are sometimes completely false.
When people who work at a veterinarian’s office gossip, and the manager doesn’t effectively address the situation, the workplace quickly becomes toxic. Some managers don’t address the gossip because they are turning a blind eye (or, more accurately, ear!) to what employees are doing. And, unfortunately, sometimes the managers are active participants in the gossiping, which makes the situation even worse.
Gossip, unchecked, can lead to significant productivity and morale issues. Star employees will likely begin to look for work at another practice, which leads to costly turnover, and significant cases of malicious gossip can lead to legal liability issues for the practice.
So, how should workplace gossip be handled?
Understanding Reasons Why People Gossip
It can be helpful to try to pinpoint why people are gossiping in your workplace. For example, do employees feel as though they aren’t being provided enough information about the workplace and so they are seeking out details among themselves? If the gossip being shared is largely about decisions being made in the veterinary office, then being more transparent about what’s going on can go a long way in quashing the gossip.
Are there trust issues in the practice, especially between employees and managers? If employees don’t trust what their managers say, they tend to rely upon one another to get the real story, and this easily lends itself to creating a gossip culture. Honest and open communicate is key, and that starts with the top.
Other times, certain employees gain a reputation, rightly or wrongly, as someone in the know. If these employees enjoy being perceived as a central source of information, they will continue to play this role to soak up attention. This creates a malignant cycle because, as the information-central employee is rewarded with attention, he or she will likely continue to provide even more gossip. So, what can you do? Once someone regularly engages in gossip, it can be challenging to correct this behavior but it can sometimes be addressed by helping the employee receive attention in positive and productive ways.
Put Policies in Place
Like any other human resource-related issue, employee manuals should contain policies to address the situation, including what is prohibited and the consequences that will occur if someone acts in an inappropriate way. This information should be highlighted during the annual meetings in which the manual is discussed.
It’s important to know the law when writing these policies. For example, it’s tempting to include that employees are not allowed to discuss their salaries – but it isn’t legal to prohibit that. It’s also important to differentiate between harmful gossip and normal workplace discussions. For example, someone might say, “Did you hear that Sara’s cat had six kittens last night? The cat is such a beautiful calico, so I’ll bet the kittens are really cute.”
Technically speaking, you could call this gossip, which can be defined as “casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.”
The employee is talking about Sara in a casual way, providing details that may not be true. There might have been five kittens – or seven – and maybe none are calico. Or, maybe the cat didn’t even have her kittens yet. But, should that conversation be prohibited by policy?
Define what you mean by gossip. You might, for example, determine that, when conversations about others are disruptive, or have the potential to hurt feelings or damage relationships, that’s gossip. If it drains employees’ morale, that’s gossip.
Model Appropriate Behavior
After a long day, it might be tempting for you – as a veterinarian or practice manager – to make an off-the-cuff remark about a difficult client. But, beware. To help ensure that employees don’t gossip, it’s crucial that you watch what you say. When employees make a comment that can be construed as gossip, you can model how that same concept could be shared in a non-gossipy way or explain why it wasn’t appropriate to say. When an employee occasionally makes comments that cross over into gossip, behavior modeling and employee coaching generally work. Call yourself out, as well, when you slip into behaviors along the gossip spectrum.
Deal Directly with Problem Employees First
If an employee is a hard-core gossiper, then you will need to follow your progressive disciplinary procedure, a process that most likely starts with a verbal warning and ends with termination. Meet individually with a perpetrator in a confidential location and discuss the impact that his or her gossiping is having on other individuals and the practice. Review with each perpetrator the disciplinary procedures that will be followed, and then stick to them, even if it results in firing an employee who resists improving his or her behavior.
It’s important to meet individually with gossipers first, rather than going immediately into a team meeting or sending out an email blast, and here’s why. You might remember being a child in a classroom where a teacher vented about the high absenteeism rate – ranting, of course, to the students who did show up to class. Sending a group email or holding a team meeting without individual counseling and discipline is the grown-up version of the teacher chastising people with good attendance for absenteeism.
When you do meet with your entire team, discuss the topic of gossip on a broad level. Invite your team to brainstorm solutions to help ensure that your workplace culture is as positive and gossip-free as possible. This can include rewarding employees when they share positive news with one another, perhaps giving kudos to a fellow employee who received an important certification or handled a difficult customer especially well (making sure that these “kudos” aren’t really a disguise for gossiping about the challenging customer!).
Finally, you need to protect employees who share instances of gossiping with managers. Ironically, you also need to watch to ensure that this reporting doesn’t become an insidious form of gossip. Remain firm and consistent in your efforts to root out gossip. This process can be challenging, especially if gossiping behaviors have been entrenched into your workplace culture, but the ultimate rewards are significant and worthwhile.
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