Internal gossip -- how to deal with the inevitable
17:17, 9 June 2010
.. Posted in Communication, Outreach and General Mngmt.. Link
A March 2010 article (registration required) in Workplace.com highlights a study in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography regarding workplace gossip -- how rumors among employees about a company can dilute authority, can poison workplace congeniality and contribute to staff turnover, all of which can cause harm an organization without ever becoming public (external to the organization).
The study is focused on paid employees, but, ofcourse, its findings are important to nonprofits and volunteers as well. The study's author, sociologist Tim Hallett, calls such gossip "reputational warfare," and says that once a bad reputation has been solidified, justified or not, it usually sticks -- often with negative consequences for the entire organization.
A small fear, an unanswered question or an observation by someone uninformed about a situation can turn into something much larger and very negative -- and even go public. Employees and staff will always talk internally about how things are going at an organization, what they think the future holds, what obstacles they see facing the country, etc. Don't try to stop those conversations, but do work to make sure they are fact-based and within the bounds of your confidentiality policies, and work continually to create a culture where employees and staff share their fears, questions and suppositions early with supervisors, without fear of retribution for merely expressing a fear or asking a question.
Gossip tends to crop up when there are voids in communication. Therefore, address fears, questions and suppositions quickly and regularly by filling the void with information -- about possible office relocation, promotions, layoffs, firings, conflicts with funders or partners, etc. If a situation must be kept confidential and can't be shared with employees and volunteers -- for instance, the reasons why a staff person was fired -- then explain why such information is kept confidential, in such a way that employees realize that you will honor their personnel issues, positive or negative, in a confidential manner as well. If the information could be damaging to the organization if released too early, then say so, explicitly. If you should have released the information sooner internally, apologize to staff and talk about what you will be doing to ensure that information is not withheld again -- or ask them how they would have liked the situation to have been handled.
If you don't want to commit anything or everything to writing, such as in a company-wide memo, then meet individually with staff and volunteers, have the executive director or a senior manager address individual department meetings, and have all-staff meetings. Give employees multiple opportunities to ask questions and voice concerns about rumors that they have heard.
In short, you must create a culture of faith and trust among your paid staff and volunteers in each other and in the organizational leadership in order to prevent damaging gossip. It's much easier to create and sustain such a culture than it is to try to overcome "reputational warfare."
Also see For Nonprofit Organizations: How to Handle Online Criticism.
