UK 
United States
It can sometimes feel like the workplace has descended back into the kind of silly immaturity levels that were rife on the playground.
Unfortunately, it can often take very little for staff to revert back to fuelling the rumour mill, bickering and constantly complaining about each other.
Obviously this kind of rhetoric is extremely damaging for the workforce; Formstack research stated that 85% of employees in workplaces that are often subject to office drama are less productive than those who avoid such scenarios; the overall cost of this productivity is around £5.3trillion dollars each year. Of course, the key issue for leaders is that, unlike other such workplace concerns, it’s extremely hard to root out the cause of office dramas to effectively eliminate them and trying would simply be embarking on a wild goose chase – which is massively time-wasting. So, what can you do to counteract it, and effectively prevent it from becoming a serious issue amongst your team?
Christmas party | Festive confessions: Employees own up
The first step is to not get embroiled in the subject matter. It may sound painfully obvious, but a surprising number of leaders see it as their right to weigh in on the issues and end up simply deepening the fractured rift in the workforce. It’s a leader’s job to unite their staff and rise above the pettiness – otherwise the result will be a drop-off in engagement and productivity.
