Why Employee Gossip Sessions Might Actually Be Good for Your Business

A little smack talk may actually help your teams pull together and work harder.

BY KIT EATON @KITEATON

You might think that office gossip isn’t a good thing. At best, it means people aren’t concentrating on work, and are busy instead badmouthing you while leaning on the water cooler. At worst it may lead to lawsuits if gossip goes too far and strays into harassment or discrimination. But a new study draws a totally different conclusion about gossip: it’s actually a good thing, helping your staff to build bonds that could strengthen teamwork and productivity. 

Delightfully, at least from your employees’ perspective, research from a group of universities led by Rutgers shows the benefits of office gossip are most pronounced when staff are chatting about the boss. 

Researchers gathered the data by questioning hundreds of office workers over an extended period, trying to find out how they felt and acted after gossiping about their work and boss, or if they hadn’t. A report from Rutgers notes the results were polarizing. 

First, workers who’d been badmouthing their bosses tended to avoid them in the workplace for a while afterwards. They did so out of “guilt, shame, or fear of being called out,” the report notes. This conclusion points to a clear downside for allowing office gossip that may surprise nobody: gossip can damage productivity. 

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Second, after gossiping workers actually felt closer to their colleagues. Their informal discussions essentially boosted a sense of camaraderie and teamwork, which the researchers noted led workers “to be more collaborative that day.” The data suggest that the positive benefit of gossip was particularly strong if workers were discussing a boss who was emotionally or verbally abusive—gossip positions the leader as a “common enemy” that allows staff to group more closely together and support each other.

In a statement, Rutgers professor Rebecca Greenbaum of the School of Management and Labor Relations and one of the study’s authors, explained that the research “unpacks why gossip gives us mixed emotions and how it can affect the rest of our workday.” She noted that gossip isn’t “the only way or the best way for employees to bond and connect with one another,” nor does the paper suggest that workers should actively choose to “gossip about abusive bosses for social support,” HRDive reported. 

What’s actually important is that the study shows that gossip has a meaningful place at work, even if it comes with downsides. The fact is that “gossip and our emotions play into our need for social survival,” Greenbaum wrote, noting that “Sometimes we protect ourselves from our own bad behaviors, like gossip, by avoiding those we may have hurt. Other times we gossip because we need to feel closer to people who ‘get’ our experiences.”

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