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Increase Productivity and Profitability by Simply Eliminating Gossip

Written by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Do your employees gossip? Have you ever considered the financial impact to your bottom line? What can you do to eliminate it?

Increase Productivity and Profitability by Simply Eliminating Gossip

Gossip is a drain on productivity and the bottom line. Standing around the water cooler to sending emails is a waste of time and more importantly contributes to a negative workplace environment when the discussions focus on others.

Of course to eliminate this negative behavior begins by returning to the Values Statement within the strategic action plan. Sales Coaching Tip: If you do not have a value statement or a strategic action plan, then you are engaged in Captain Wing It and so is everyone else in your organization.

The discussion of these values should begin within the hiring process. By letting incoming new employees understand that these are the non-negotiable behaviors expected within an organization sets a firm foundation for future positive behaviors. Inform employees violation of this value is subject for dismissal.

Unfortunately what happens in some organizations is that employees do learn the values, but the executive teams do not model those desired behaviors. Additionally, policies and procedures may be counterproductive to these core positive values. These gaps must be addressed to create a culture of high productivity.

Gossip needs to be totally eliminated for these reasons:

• Negative energy affecting the entire culture of the organization
• Waste of time estimated to be 65 hours per year per employee
• Lost productivity of almost 1.5 weeks per year per employee
• Drain to the bottom line - $46,875 for a business with 50 employees at an average of $30,000 salary
• Is it wrong

Some companies choose to ignore this negative behavior and attempt to work around it. This decision is quite illogical given that they probably would not ignore excessive absenteeism.

People gossip because they believe than can do it. To stop gossiping may need to begin with individual beliefs about gossip. Does an employee believe it is Okay? Until the beliefs are identified, they (the beliefs) will continue to drive the actions (behaviors) creating the results. In this case, wasted time and loss profits.

If you wish to improve your bottom line, then take this proactive action to eliminate gossip. Your organization will improve not only productivity, but create a positive work environment.

Related Articles
  Banning Gossip in the Office
  Monetize Lost Productivity
  Three Steps to Stop Energy Drain
  Zip it!
  Gossip

Article Tags: bottom line, excessive absenteeism, executive teams, firm foundation, gaps, gossip, hiring process, li li, nbsp, negative behavior, negative energy, policies and procedures, productivity, salary, sending emails, ul, waste of time, water cooler, weeks per year, workplace environment



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