“Did you hear that the new Team Lead is flirting with the boss? ”; “Oh! he is getting divorced!”; “Her wallet got wacked from her bag!!” .W ho doesn’t like the juicy gossips and if it’s at the work place, the more the merrier! There were few people in my previous office, who were also known as ‘Mr. Know It All’ as they knew everthing about the workplace and people. However, office gossip is always regarded as vicious and hurting for the employees. People believe that it can hamper the productivity and can create physical and mental problems for the victims.

On the other hand we feel there definitely is a brighter side to office gossip.  Gossip can be a great source of information (apart from fun and humour!). You can get useful pieces of information from gossip about hints of lay-offs, impending policy changes, who is doing what, strategies for the customers, growth prospects, promotions in the team, news about clients and business etc. So don’t be uncomfortable with the idea of gossip, in fact consider it as a positive, informal communication system.

Workplace gossip can be healthy and beneficial for your career. Just remember to follow a few simple rules, listed below:

1. Filter: Being the silent listener helps. Extract the useful information and filter out the rest. You may not be interested in knowing about personal history of a colleague, but who is preparing the promotion list and on what basis, can be useful information for you.

2. Utilize: You can use the information in many useful ways. Like if you got to know that your boss likes doing social work a lot then you also can discuss your ideas and experience on the same. So that you could be in the good books of your boss.

3. Promote: At informal team meetings, smoke breaks with the boss, or at other conventional gossip places you can make people aware about your achievement or your efficiency at work that might have gone unnoticed otherwise.

4. Trust: In a professional work environment, you may not get the chance to know and understand your colleagues. By spending some informal time with them, you can mingle with your peers, understand them and build a constructive relationship.

5. Unwind: In a competitive and stress inducing work environment if you can enjoy a light moment with your peers, it will refresh you.

I feel, nothing is really bad or harmful; it depends on how we act upon it. We need to see from a positive viewpoint. We should know that even useless junk can be useful in building a castle!

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