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When Office Talk Can Hurt Your Business

 

  • Can Office Gossip Be Good For You?
  • No matter how large or small your office, office gossip is universal.
  • Office rumors stimulate conversation and provide natural breaks to make the day go by faster.
  • We all should be careful about engaging in office gossip, as it often can be derogatory when aimed toward others.
  • Office gossip, on the other hand, can be instrumental in discovering the pulse of the company.
  • What can you gain from office gossip?
  • You most certainly want to listen for valuable information that could affect your job. For example, if the company is about to be bought, sold, merged, or about to right size, down size or outsource, you most certainly want to be proactive in listening for signs of change. You certainly don’t want to be the last to hear important information.
  • A senior manager arrived at work one day and discovered that her company was sold. The sale was not announced to the staff. A team member found an article in the morning paper and then substantiated the information online. The senior manager was fired shortly thereafter as her position was eliminated for redundancy.
  • If you’re sensing unusual activity or hearing rumors, depending on the source, chances are they are true.
  • What’s the best way to protect your own interest?
  • For the entire article go to techexecpartners.

It would stand to reason that office gossips are neither good for production or morale. In fact, they may not be good for business at all. Do you think for a moment that those who run off at the mouth during work hours are not also doing the same once they are out the door.

Then, as Diane point out in her article, there is the upside. The employees with their ears to the ground who through some seemingly preternatural sensibility are able to acquire information that no one else has. They are the ones who get the scuttlebutt, as they say in the Navy.

So here in lies the dilemma, the same person that can clue you in to impending layoffs, buyouts and other acts of crisis that may impact your job are the same people who can bad mouth you behind your back. But, hey, no one claimed it is a perfect world and sometimes you get the best information from the people you don’t particularly like.

When its your business or you are the human resources manager responsible for hiring, in addition to the usual criminal background check and education verification, you may also wish to conduct a reference verification to see whether the candidate’s big mouth was part of the cause to show them the exit door.

Check them out before you hire. Call Corra.

 

 

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.