Look Around HR

It’s been said that as long as there has been offices, there has been office relationships. And I think it is also true that as long as there have been offices, there has been office gossip. After all, they don’t it water cooler talk for nothing.

Here is an excerpt from the Christian Science Monitor:

Just a year ago, the atmosphere in Sam Chapman’s small public relations firm was often tense.

“We had information leaks, we had disgruntledness, we had competitors finding things out, and we had sniping about senior management policies,” says Mr. Chapman, CEO of Empower Public Relations in Chicago. “People would stop talking when you walked by.”

A life coach identified the problem: gossip. Determined to elevate the tone, Chapman took dramatic steps. He fired three employees for gossiping. He also established a strict policy, turning the whole office into a no-gossip zone.

More…

To quash such talk, Chapman devised a policy for his staff of 17: “If I hear you gossiping about somebody, we send you back to the person about whom you were gossiping and you tell what you said. That dispels all the false information.”

There is no doubt in my mind that excessive gossip is bad for the morale and can lower office productivity. To me, office gossip is an issue like talking about compensation, you can discourage and work to reduce it but outright banning it is a little trickier.

You need to have a definitive employee communications process in line. Employees need to know whom they can talk to if they have problems (their supervisor, HR, etc.) related to something or someone at work. If they don’t know whom to contact they may just tell the guy or gal standing next to them.

And you need to weed out the bad roots. You can not ban talking (obviously), but can certainly discipline employee who are breaking the rules and hurting business operations.

If you live in Pennsylvania, you are probably so sick of seeing campaign commercials that the last thing you want to do is talk about politics when you get to the office. And by and large- that is probably a good thing (in my humble opinion). In most companies, talking politics is frowned upon and solicitation (of any kind) is usually banned in most employee handbooks.

It seems most people feel that talking politics can only cause problems, lead to divisions, etc. And a poll conducted by Vault.com last October backs that assumption up. The poll of 727 employees said that 46 percent have seen colleagues go at it over politics. Additionally, 30 percent say a co-worker has tried to get them to support their candidate. Vault also has a man-on-the-street interview asking people about their dealings with office politics.

From Newsday:

Political discussions can so easily move beyond talk of the candidate and into some highly personal and potentially volatile issues related to race, abortion, gender, religion and gay marriage, says Diane M. Pfadenhauer, a lawyer, professor and human resources consultant in Northport.

”People don’t have a ‘whatever’ approach,” she says. And heightening passion can lead to polarization and disparaging remarks that colleagues could find objectionable - and in turn lead to complaints about a hostile work environment.

I agree with the sentiment behind that. From an HR perspective, it makes since to take measures to avoid any conflict. We do have a First Amendment, and need to understand that, but also have a business to run- and run as smoothly as possible. As Pfadenhauer said, it doesn’t just stop at ‘I’m supporting Hillary’ or ‘I’m supporting McCain,’ it goes on to why you should support them too, and then why the other guy (or gal) is bad, and then other emotional issues.

However, trying to ban politics at all costs can lead to a slippery slope. Where do you stop- banning campaign bumper stickers on employee’s personal automobiles in the company parking lot? What about ‘Choose Life’ car tags?

Like most issues, this isn’t black and white. I think campaign solicitations or posting material on a bulletin board should not be allowed in any cases. If you want to campaign for your candidate, volunteer to work the phone banks or go knocking door-to-door. If some employees are friends and go to dinner and want to talk politics there- that’s fine- but I would encourage employees to keep the political chatter out of the office.

Be honest. You can tell me someone in your company who always has a messy desk. It may be you, but who ever it is, I bet you can point to someone right now. And I am not just talking about a stack of to-do work for the rest of the week. I mean files on top of files, possibly with last week’s lunch in between.

Here is a question posed on the Monster message board that has since been put on their blog:

I’m new to management and have a predicament I’d like an opinion on. I have a worker who keeps a very messy desk. I’m not a neat freak, but there are piles of paperwork as far back as mid-‘07 among other things that, if someone had to fill in…would be very confused. I’ve already lightly mentioned that it be cleaned up, then again when it didn’t happen, I actually gave a timeline of one week for it to be cleaned up…and of course, it didn’t happen. So, is it something I should just let be and assume the employee works better in a controlled chaos environment? Or should I step up my requests and not be so nice about it? I’m not sure how much it is my place to tell someone to clean up their work area if it really doesn’t bother anyone but me. Thanks for reading!

Personally, I like my desk and office to be straightened up. That’s how my house is (generally), how my bedroom is, etc. I would venture to guess that someone with a messy desk has a messy house, messy car, etc. It is just how they operate. If they are able to keep up with their work, locate documents when they need to, then I don’t have much of a problem with it.

I would prefer to see them at least straighten out there pile when they go home at night, and have their desk pretty clean by the end of the day on Friday. But I would take a solid employee with a messy desk over someone who is incompetent but has one clean desk.