When is workplace chat ‘just gossip’ and when is it ‘sharing information’? It depends who’s doing it

When two junior employees bump into each other in the corridor and start chatting about their manager’s overbearing manner, it’s typically considered gossip. But what about when two managers have an off-record catch-up to discuss an under-performing employee?

Both scenarios meet traditional definitions of gossip – the information being shared is about other people, the people it’s about are absent, the information is shared in a way that casts judgement on those people, and it’s informal. Yet the two situations are viewed very differently.

What counts as gossip is much more slippery than we might think. I reviewed 184 academic articles to understand what really constitutes workplace gossip.

The key, I found, is not any set of objective criteria, but rather people’s shared agreement that a situation counts as gossip.

This understanding of gossip helps us make sense of the “workplace gossip paradox” – the idea that gossip can be considered both a reliable source of social information (“the inside word”) and an unreliable information source (“just gossip”).

My work also provides insights into how businesses can manage gossip before it becomes a scandal.

Knowledge is power – but power controls knowledge

How does recognising the slipperiness of gossip help us understand the workplace paradox? The answer has to do with the role of power in legitimising information.

Leaders and managers need information to justify action. If a manager is going to investigate a sexual harassment claim, they can’t do so based solely on a hunch. They need to hear about from it someone.

If the victim of sexual harassment complains directly to their manager, an investigation is automatically justified. But what if the manager hears about harassment indirectly and unofficially (for example, through “gossip”), with the added complication that the alleged perpetrator is another manager?

If the manager does something about what they’ve heard and the source turns out to be unreliable, they could face negative consequences for acting on what was essentially “just gossip.” But if they don’t act, and the information turns out to be credible, they could face repercussions for ignoring the “inside word.”

There is evidence that such paradoxical situations play out quite frequently in real-world workplaces. For example, inside information about negligence towards patient safety in healthcare settings has, in the past, been dismissed as “just gossip” until it provoked a public scandal.

The same thing happened in a university where gossip shared through a “whisper network” was eventually corroborated by an independent inquiry. In this case, the inquiry also found official complaints had been ignored.

One case study from the United States found managers tended to keep an ear out for information passing through the grapevine and selectively use it to further their own interests.

If gossip threatened their power, they repressed it as “just gossip”. But if gossip provided “useful” information – ammunition against a subversive employee, for example – management legitimised gossip as “official information”.

How to manage the workplace gossip paradox

To avoid scandals stemming from when gossip is ignored, managers might consider “co-opting” gossip, bringing it into official communication channels.

But there’s a problem with this approach. Gossip gains its credibility as the inside word because it takes place outside official communication channels. Therefore, if managers try to co-opt gossip into formal management processes, it’s likely to have the unintended consequence of discrediting the shared information.

Instead, “managing gossip” requires a better understanding of its functions and motivations.

One function is to reduce uncertainty. Research suggests gossip often arises to fill information gaps. For example, people might speculate about a manager’s salary by gossiping about their expensive car or holiday.

Such gossip is likely to be exaggerated and counterproductive. However, it could be managed simply by being transparent about staff salaries, filling the information gap before gossip does.

Another key function of gossip is to warn against antisocial behaviours like bullying. But if employees feel comfortable speaking up about such behaviour — even when it’s perpetrated by those with official power – managers will not face the dilemma of whether to act on information that could turn out to be “just gossip.”

Gossip is a slippery and paradoxical form of communication. Some would say it’s unmanageable. But what can be managed are the workplace behaviours and hierarchical relationships that gossip loves to sink its teeth into.

The author would like to acknowledge Trish Corner, Helena Cooper-Thomas and Rachel Morrison for their contributions to developing this research.