05.07.06 The 4th Organisational Consequence of Negative Gossip Employee Demotivation

Employee Demotivation

Negative gossip can demotivate team members by eroding their morale to the extent that they just work to fulfill a duty. That situation can be exacerbated should the gossip threaten members’ job security, remuneration and other sensitive issues that hinder work satisfaction.

Truth be told, and considering the false rumour that the initiators of the negative gossip had hatched against us, some members of our team lost their motivation to continue training and supporting the entities in the gossipmongers’ sector and others in their fraternity, which unfortunately led to a reverse in the quality of services delivered by those organisations which had improved tremendously prior.

Nehemiah almost faced a similar plight when the rumours wielded by Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem dampened the motivation of the wall-building team. As explained in many places, the bible reveals how the labourers started becoming weaker and feeling threatened that they would be attacked. The situation was so intense that Nehemiah had to arm the builders with spears, shields, bows and armor in addition to encouraging them to remember the Lord and fight for their families. The good thing was that he promptly provided ‘24-hour protection’ for his team; thence reviving their motivation to implement the assignment (Nehemiah 4).

In the JuaLink story, we see how the erroneous rumour of ‘selling JuaLink to foreigners’ disengaged team members, pushing the best performers to run to Bidacom Africa. To add salt to injury, those who had nowhere to go lost enthusiasm for work. Plus, with the best team members gone, tasks must have become more burdensome for the rest of the workforce, causing their motivation to take a nosedive.