Our company recently had everyone take an online class in workplace harassment prevention. Information in the course made me wonder . . . what problems do we choose to address and which ones do we normalize?
Now let me be clear: I’m not minimizing workplace harassment. It is a problem that needs to be addressed. When I hear people I know/trust/love talk about the hassles they’ve had, it saddens me. We must do better.
So the issue isn’t whether we need to address workplace harassment. Of course we do. The question for me is this: what bad behavior are we normalizing in the workplace?
Here’s why this struck me. Prior to taking the course I was consulting with a team that had a gossiping problem. To protect people I won’t get into the details. Suffice to say a wave of gossip was going through a workplace about a specific person. It was impacting job performance, hurting reputations, and creating a toxic environment. Most importantly, it was degrading a person’s character. It had to stop.
About this time I started the two-hour online harassment prevention course. The course was pre-recorded and well done. Two people acted as hosts and had interactive conversations. Then they’d show a video with actors recreating a specific workplace scenario. After the video I would be asked to answer multiple choice questions, and then the two hosts came back to discuss the video.
So far so good. No big surprises, and the advice was logical, obvious, and sensitive to the situation.
Then one of the hosts said something that made my ears perk up. It was after a video with two actors talking about a third person they work with. The question arose — was that conversation a form or harassment, or merely workplace gossip?
My ears perked up. “Merely” workplace gossip?
The host then said something like, “Look, workplace gossip has always been around and always will be.”
Wow. Couldn’t we say the same about harassment? Imagine the uproar if I said, “Look, workplace harassment has always been around and always will be.” I’d rightfully be vilified.
But apparently it’s okay to normalize gossip?
I don’t think so. Gossip is in many ways the opposite of generosity — it shares what is not healthy, what often is not true, and what corrupts rather than heals.
Now I’m not advocating for laws that attempt to stop workplace gossip. Nor am I suggesting we need online workshops to address the issue.
But over 40-years of workplace leadership I have had to address dozens of gossip related problems that harmed reputations, created mistrust, divided teams into factions, and impacted workplace performance. Most importantly, it needlessly hurt people.
So to hear the host of a harassment prevention course say gossip is normal and unstopable is not acceptable. Workplace harassment is bad. Gossip is bad too. Don’t vilify one as you normalize the other.
Sometimes we choose our problems and ignore others. We shouldn’t be allowed that privilege.