Office gossip, also referred to as the rumor mill, can be damaging to employee productivity. Whether workers are discussing the private life of a staff member or surmising management's next move, company time is lost and morale can suffer. You may attempt to stop office gossip by enforcing policies against it, but playing engaging games to show your employees why it should end may be more effective. Adhuri kahani hamari episode 112. Related Articles
Best GossipDuring weekly staff meetings, encourage employees to discuss the office gossip for the week. Have each staff member write down the most inflammatory comment made about the company, such as 'layoffs will be occurring next week.' Read each statement and respond to it with accurate information, if you have the answer. If not, agree to research the details and let your employees know. If it regards an issue that you are not at liberty to discuss, tell your staff as much as you are able. At the end of the discussion, your employees can vote for the most outrageous gossip of the week, and the person who wrote it down receives a $5 gift card to the local coffee shop. Knowing that concerns will be addressed at regular staff meetings diffuses the mystery around rumors that start during the week. Is It Gossip?Write various statement on small cards. Make some of them fabricated gossip and the others facts. Assemble your staff in a circle. Tell them that you will read a statement to each one and that person will have to decide if it constitutes fact or gossip. If the person answers correctly, they keep the card. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game wins a free lunch with you. After reading statements, such as 'John had sales of $50,000 this month' and 'Judy is dating Sam,' explain why some information is destructive to another person and the office productivity. In addition, tell your employees that those caught spreading gossip may face discipline and to come to you if they need clarification on information heard through the grapevine. Say Something NiceTo counteract the habit of speaking poorly of others and the company, teach your employees how to say something nice about their co-workers. Once a month, have meetings and write the names of each employee in your section on little pieces of paper. Fold each strip so the names are not visible. Have each employee draw a name and make true and positive statements about the person. Time each employee. Whoever speaks positively for the longest time wins. Make a plaque that is engraved with 'Positive Speaker of the Month' and pass it to the winner, who displays it in the office for the month. This reminds the person to speak well of others. In addition, for those who have not won, they can spend the month compiling positive information about others to say at the next meeting. Gossip ActsWrite scenarios of fictional office gossip situations. Choose two staff members to act out a scenario. For example, you can tell them that they are talking about a female employee who was seen having lunch with her male boss. When they returned to work, someone saw them hug in the parking lot, and later the female employee was promoted. After the employees act out the scene and interject their opinions about how the other employee earned the promotion, ask them to sit down. Explain how the employee told her boss at lunch that she was overjoyed that she just found out that she and her husband were expecting a baby. When they returned to work, the boss hugged her in congratulations. The promotion was a result of an interview from the week before and her boss was not part of the hiring committee. Ask your staff members to discuss how the gossip could impact the promoted employee and the productivity of the workplace. References (6)About the AuthorBroken Telephone Game ExamplesCarol Deeb has been an editor and writer since 1988. Her work has appeared in magazines, newspapers and online publications, as well as a book on education. Deeb is a real-estate investor and business owner with professional experience in human resources. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from San Diego State University. Cite this ArticleChoose Citation Style
Deeb, Carol. 'Games to Promote the Stop of Gossip in the Workplace.' Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/games-promote-stop-gossip-workplace-33028.html. Accessed 28 May 2019.
Deeb, Carol. (n.d.). Games to Promote the Stop of Gossip in the Workplace. Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/games-promote-stop-gossip-workplace-33028.html
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What it is: A simple, silly talking game with no winners or losers. Great for kids. Best for: Group of 6 to 12. What you need: Just people to play. How to play: Sit all of your players in a line. The player at one end of the line (we’ll call her Janna) thinks of a phrase or saying. It can be something made-up; in fact, it’s often funnier if it is. Something like, for example, “The cow ate the apple pie.” It can be as silly as Janna wants, about people in the room or about something random. Once Janna thinks of her phrase, she whispers it quietly in the ear of the player next to her, Robby. Robby listens carefully, and then once Janna finishes whispering her phrase, he leans over and whispers it in the ear of the player next to him. The game continues like this, with the phrase being passed all the way down the line of players. Now if Robby doesn’t clearly hear the phrase Janna whispers or it doesn’t make much sense to him, he CAN’T ask Janna to repeat it – that’s a rule. Each player is only allowed to say the phrase once. So if Robby didn’t hear right, he just has to guess the best he can at what the phrase might be and whisper it to the next player. That’s where the fun of the game comes in, because by the time the phrase reaches the end of the line, it’s usually so different from the original as to be silly. Once the last player (we’ll call him Benny) has the phrase whispered in his ear, he repeats it out loud to the other players, and then everyone laughs at the absurd differences in the sentences; perhaps as what started as “The cow ate the apple pie” ends as “Now Nate learns to fly.” To play another round, have Janna move to the end of the line and let Robby start the next phrase. Variations: Telephone is a good simple game, but there are some more involved – and fun – variations involving charades and drawing/writing. Other Related Games and PostsComments are closed.
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