If your workplace isn’t the headquarter of one of the five political parties, politics can only bring it harm. While some senior leaders may enjoy office politics to reveal their employees’ characters, it comes at a heavy price.
Office politics casts a significantly negative impact on employees for multiple reasons. It discourages communication and collaboration between employees and shifts their focus from work. This can lead to the destruction of workplace culture. Employees can feel highly pressured and stressed in such an environment, which can negatively impact their performance and lead them to quit.
As an employer, you can prevent office politics and ensure a positive and growth-oriented workplace culture for your employees with the help of the following policies:
Ensure Transparency
When the workplace doesn’t hide any information from its employees, it curbs the need for assumption, confusion, and gossip. Clear and open information regarding office activities, status, rules, and guidelines ensure that all employees are on the same page.
However, there is a difference between not hiding things from employees and actively informing them. If you truly want to prevent office politics, you must ensure the latter. When a workplace exercises its responsibility to inform its employees and keep them updated about everything, it also takes charge of the narrative. You can apply this policy by sending regular company-wide emails to ensure complete transparency. A bonus advantage of this policy is the promotion of open communication between employees and office administration.
Measure Employee Performance
Developing a system to measure employee performance helps workplaces ensure further transparency regarding promotions and increments. Moreover, it helps keep employees focused on work, promotes healthy competition, and highlights why the employees were hired in the first place, i.e., their talents and abilities.
There are various ways to measure employee performance objectively. Performance metrics such as the revenue generated per employee, ROI, and overtime rates are some of the most effective methods. Quantitative rankings, peer reviews, behavioral checklists, self-evaluation, and rating scales can also objectively measure employee performance. Keeping these measures transparent and accessible to employees can also prevent office politics.
Implement Punishment for Gossip-Mongers
No matter how transparent and open an office environment is, those who enjoy office politics might still find one way to insinuate gossip. Therefore, besides promoting a transparent and positive workplace culture, it is also essential to communicate the consequences of water-cooler conversations to the employees.
Make sure to confront anyone caught spreading gossip or false information about the company or its employees. This policy must be more strictly applied to those occupying higher positions, as junior employees may often be scared to confess the source of information to their managers. Senior employees with higher stakes in the workplace can also have increased interest in office politics. Hence, ensuring the safety of the company’s image can be impossible without the safety of its junior employees.
Lastly, top management’s role can be important to prevent office politics and create a positive workplace culture. The positive attitudes must trickle down to ensure a supportive work environment.
