9 to 5 Wellness
Do you have the knowledge you need to help your organization get the best return on the time and capital invested in employee wellbeing? Are you a busy professional or C-suite leader looking to introduce wellbeing program at your work?
Discover the art and science of helping organizations grow their most important resource, their people. In this podcast we discuss how organizations can utilize the potential of wellbeing programs to deliver high return on investment (ROI) to employers. We talk about the radical impact that holistic employee wellbeing programs can have on overall quality of work and productivity. We will be sharing insights on investing in human capital. Such as:
🌟 What has helped their organizations gain a competitive advantage?
🌟 How they see the future of employee wellbeing?
🌟 Misunderstandings that are out in the corporate market today
🌟 Advice to other leaders to create a happier, healthier, and more productive workplace
Our guests are C-suite leaders, and wellness innovators across the value chain: HR managers, wellness champions, community wellbeing ambassadors, service vendors, and wellness consultants.
9 to 5 Wellness
How to stay away from work gossip?
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In this episode, learn three tactics to neutralize workplace gossip:
The “Gray Rock redirect.”
Adding a genuine positive spin about the person being discussed.
A direct exit with simple phrases that set boundaries and protect reputation.
00:00 Welcome to the Podcast
00:29 Weekend Races and Wins
01:45 Why Gossip Spreads
03:44 Gossip Damages Trust
05:00 Three Ways to Shut It Down
05:16 Gray Rock Redirect
05:43 Positive Spin Technique
06:16 Direct Exit Phrases
07:28 Set the Standard
08:10 Final Takeaways and Outro
🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at: https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟
My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!
🌟 🌟 🌟 You can learn more about ME- the host at https://www.aeshatahir.com
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Welcome to the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast, a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward-thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement. I'm your host, Aisha here.
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Nine to five Wellness Podcast. It's Sunday, March 22nd, and it was such a beautiful weekend here in Pennsylvania.
The weather was awesome for running. It was like perfect weather. I hope the weather stays this way. And it was a double race weekend for me. I ran a 5K yesterday on Saturday with the youth running group and a Cupid's 10 K today. It was like delayed race, which was supposed to take place in February, and then they.
Rescheduled it, because of snow. And guess what? I placed third in the 10 K. It was totally unexpected. I actually signed up Saturday night. I was like, okay, you know what? It would be fun to just push myself a little bit on my long run. It was something I wasn't expecting , but I'm happy nonetheless. One of the thoughts that came to me because of this was that if you keep showing up sooner or later, you get the results you want. So whatever your dream is, whatever your goals are, keep on showing up and I can guarantee it that you will get the results.
Today's episode is about something that happens at work a lot and it impacts your work culture, it impacts your corporations or organization's culture. And we are talking about something that is very, very common in our workplaces, and that's gossip, like gossiping about others. And it's interesting how I came across this topic. One of my friends, Sumin got promoted to a management position within her department and she will be her. Team's boss now. So she's in a leadership role. And she used to work with that team prior to, being promoted. So she's going from being a peer to a boss and she's like.
I don't wanna partake in gossip anymore, and I know that you don't indulge in gossip, so I need some pointers from you. And we talked about it and I said to her that I'm gonna turn this into a podcast episode because it's part of our daily wellbeing.
Believe it or not. We spend about one third of our lives at work and in that time, you're going to hear things. You're going to hear about who's getting passed over for a promotion, who's dating within the company, and who's about to get fired. However, this is how I see gossip. I think it's like fast food of office communication. It's cheap. It's everywhere. And it feels good for about five minutes until the heartburn sets in, and in all honesty, sometimes I wish that I could gossip and I'm actually very bad at it, probably because I don't like it.
Today we are talking about how to stay out of the mud, protect your reputation, and set a standard that actually makes people respect you at work.
First, let's get real. Why do we do it? If we look at our evolution, gossip was how tribes shared information, but in a 21st century office. It's a career killer. If you are the person who knows everything about everyone, your boss notices, not because you're connected,
but because they can't trust you with the sensitive projects, if you talk to me about them. You'll talk to them about me. It's that simple. And gossip isn't just chatting, it's defined as unconfirmed. Often negative speculation about others. It ruins reputations. If you're the person who spreads gossip, over time people will stop trusting you.
It destroys morale. A gossip heavy environment or culture creates high tension, anxiety and a feeling that everyone is walking on eggshells. And then the golden rule applies. Anyone who will gossip to you will absolutely gossip about you. As a leader or a high performer who's looking to advance their career?
You want to be known for competence, not for knowing everyone's business. So there are three steps you can take to neutralize gossip, shutting it down without being the office. Buzz scale is simple.
Here are the three moves that I recommend, and quite honestly, you can start using them, starting this week. The first one is the Gray Rock redirect. When someone comes to you with, did you hear about Sarah? Don't engage, give a boring, neutral response. Oh, I hadn't heard that. Then immediately pivot to a work task. Anyway, did you see the update on the Q3 spreadsheet? You're signaling that you are a dead end for drama. Second, the positive spin. This is a power move.
When someone is tearing down a colleague, find one genuine thing that the person does well. Let's just say hypothetically that someone comes to you and says, mark is so slow with his reports. So what can you say to that person? Something along the lines of, hey, I understand, but Mark is very methodical and I've always found his data to be more accurate.
It's hard for gossip to breathe when there's no oxygen of agreement.
Third would be the direct exit, and I take that often. If it's getting heavy, just leave. You can use the phone, water, or bathroom. Excuse. Oh, I just realized I need to make a quick call or I'm going to go grab some water. You don't need to lecture them. Your absence speaks for itself.
Some of the most commonly used no gossip exit phrases, in my opinion are I'm not comfortable talking negatively about a coworker.
Another one that I have often used is, why don't we bring this issue directly to that person so we can get it resolved? And then third one, I recently heard someone use and I was like, oh, this is so good where a leader was communicating to their team, I appreciate you trusting me, but I'd like to handle this information differently.
Which was like, Hey, thanks for coming to me, but I wanna handle it differently. I'm gonna bring it probably up directly to that person, and that is the way to go. So you are setting the standard by using these phrases and by using these techniques to take the exit. If someone comes to you for gossiping, here's the secret. People treat you based on what you tolerate. When you consistently refuse to participate, two things happen. First, the gossips stop coming to you because you're no fun. Second, the leaders in your company start to see you as a safe pair of hands, setting the standard. Isn't about being perfect, it's about being predictable. Be the person who is known for excellence and integrity, not the person who knows what happened in the break room at 3:00 PM on a Friday afternoon. Your reputation is the only thing that follows you from job to job, so keep it clean.
Thanks for listening to the podcast today. If you found this helpful, send it to that one work friend you actually trust. I'll see you in the next episode.
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