Now, if we were to reverse the situation where overall engagement of employees at the workplace is very low, and performance on friendship parameters is very strong; does this mean that this social bonding at the workplace is working against the organizations efforts to improve employee engagement? Where all the conversations through all these informal channels is centered around how the organization is trying to cheat the employees and take away their bonuses or how the new guys are being interviewed to replace the old ones. The friendships at the workplace are getting stronger with common misery bringing everyone together to fight and crib against a common enemy.
A disengaged employee is like an irate customer, he/she is actively trying to spread his/her disengagement around the workplace and in the process garnering support from all others who share a similar feeling. Unlike an engaged employee who is busy working hard and contributing to building the organization, this disengaged employee is talking a lot more, enjoying longer coffee breaks and is creating more such partners in misery.
Social bonding at the workplace which can serve as a great source of bringing together the organization for achieving greater goals is now working against it with disengagement being the basis of most of these social bonds.
The failure of the organization to provide an enabling environment and local level managers to create an engaging work environment at an individual team level created this disengaging epidemic which is gradually spreading across the organization through these friendships at the workplace.
So what can an organization do to curb such a situation? Trying to curtail the relationships at the workplace would do more harm than good and would eventually lead to spreading of more negativity. The answer may lie in the basics of creating an engaging experience for every employee and hence provide more positive strokes to the conversations thereby using the informal networks to spread more positivity.
Our managers have to play a very critical role in ensuring that they are talking a lot more to their teams and keeping them abreast of what is happening in the organization to eliminate the impact of gossip on employee morale. This talking is about informing the employees about what's happening, why is it happening, hearing from them on what is troubling them and painting a true & fair picture for the employees. Nothing can replace an honest, regular dialogue.
While the most natural reaction would be to try and curb all informal communication, my suggestion would be to create opportunities for people to come together and share their thoughts, feelings and aspirations in a more conducive environment. This may actually help in steering these negative conversations in a more positive direction and create a more enabling environment at the workplace.
Another critical aspect will be to completely refrain from playing any kind of blame game in any given situation. Strictly avoid blaming anyone for anything that is going wrong at the workplace, for this may create a cycle of negativity and blaming which would further add fuel to the fire. You may want to talk to and hear from the trouble makers in private rather than use any kind of public medium to reprimand them. While you should use public platforms to recognize all sorts of positive behavior which has contributed towards creating a positive experience for employees and/or customers, thereby, encouraging more such behaviors.
Research has shown how friendships at workplace contribute to building a more positive and candid workplace where friends tolerate and work out disagreements better, cheer each other up in the times of trouble and are more committed to achieving the goals of the group. Thus, it is critical for an organization to encourage friendly relationships at the workplace rather than see it as a peril of having "people" at the workplace.
