News
Loose lips sink careers
First published in The Independent, 6 June 2007.
Gossip is a strange commodity - and our acceptance of it has certainly changed significantly over the years.
In days gone by it was simply not done to exchange salacious secrets. Doing so made you a "busy body" or a person lacking discretion.
How times change.
Now, of course, gossip is an entire industry. Any number of the publications that we euphemistically refer to as "women's magazines" dish out a weekly diet of juicy exposés of people's private lives.
Add to that the colourful information served up nightly on E! channel, and you begin to see an entire society based on "the vile tittle-tattle of footballers' wives" (to quote a recent English Court decision).
But is gossiping at work a bad thing? And should your boss be able to dismiss you for it?
This question has been at the centre of an acrimonious dispute over the last few months in a small community in New Hampshire.
A town administrator at the local council was deeply troubled to hear about rumours that were circulating in his workplace about his personal life. He complained to his employer, who launched an investigation.
What transpired was a finding that four women, all of whom were employed in administrative roles at the council, had been guilty of "gossiping" about the administrator.
Specifically, the rumours raised questions about the administrator's private life –and questioned whether he was having a sexual affair with another workmate. There is no information to suggest that the rumour was well founded – or, for that matter, that it was false. For the council that aspect was irrelevant. It was the fact of the gossiping itself that had justified the dismissals.
And that is the interesting aspect of the case. The act of exchanging salacious gossip is something which is so contrary to the employment relationship that it justifies termination. Perhaps if the gossip had been confined to the lives of the Hollywood rich and famous the outcome would have been different: but watercooler chatter about a colleague’s alleged sex life was fatal.
Could it happen here? In a word, yes.
A similar issue was addressed in this country in Sheerin v Jamieson Castles Barristers & Solicitors (Unreported, ERA, Auckland, 1 March 2002). In that case an employee of a law firm was dismissed from her job because she had refused to stop making allegations about an affair that she said was occurring between one of the partners in the firm and one of the secretaries.
The Authority found that the employee had continued to make allegations about the affair despite warnings being made for her to stop. Her behaviour was held to be a breach of the obligation of good faith owed by her as an employee.
Interestingly, the Authority concluded that the rumour had been false – and that no affair had taken place. But that did not have any material bearing upon the Authority’s decision: it said that it was the act of gossiping itself, rather than the truth of the rumour, that justified dismissal.
Put simply, under New Zealand law it is unacceptable for an employee to gossip about another person’s personal affairs – because doing so is contrary to the obligation of good faith which underpins the employment relationship.
Perhaps the most significant feature of the case, however, was the part that email played in Ms Sheerin's undoing.
Amongst other things, Ms Sheerin disseminated some of her gossip using the firm's email system. The employer was able to produce communications from her to evidence her gossiping. This objective evidence made it difficult for Ms Sheerin to deny her conduct (even though she tried in vain) - and the Authority regarded her emails as incriminating evidence.
Given the undeniable attraction of salacious gossip - and its supposed general acceptance in our popular culture - many employers may question how their internal email systems are being used.
Further, employers may be well advised to consider whether their employees are using their equipment to join those external gossip-warrens that we know as "chat rooms". Not only might an employer take issue with use of its business equipment for these purposes, it may also take issue with such practice as a time waster - which might constitute breaches of the good faith obligations owed by employees.
This case – and the recent events in America – serves as a warning to employees that indulging in workplace gossip may constitute a breach of their employment obligations. It also serves as a reminder for employers to remain on the alert for workplace gossip of this nature – and to take action to ensure that salacious and malicious chatter at work is eliminated.
