Workplace gossip rarely introduces itself honestly.  It usually arrives dressed as concern.

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but…”

“I only thought you should know…”

“Apparently there have been complaints.”

“Between you and me, management has concerns about her.”

Sometimes the speaker is repeating a rumour. Sometimes the story has been embellished. Sometimes it is entirely false.

But sometimes it is true.  That does not necessarily make its circulation proper.

Jewish law has a particularly developed understanding of this distinction. It calls harmful or derogatory speech lashon hara—literally, an “evil tongue” or “wicked speech”. Technically, lashon hara commonly refers to damaging speech that is substantially true. A false allegation belongs to the still more serious category of motzi shem ra: giving another person a false bad name. Rechilut, or tale-bearing, involves carrying information between people in a way that creates hostility or resentment.  The distinction is morally important.

Most people already understand that lying about a colleague is wrong. Lashon hara asks the harder question:  Why are you saying something harmful merely because you believe you are entitled to say it?

Three Duties Governing Harmful Speech

Jewish tradition speaks of 613 mitzvot, or commandments. Lashon hara does not belong to a tidy, self-contained group of precisely three rules. The Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan’s comprehensive work on ethical speech, identifies numerous commandments that may be implicated by a single episode of gossip.  Three principles nevertheless capture its moral character.

The first is the prohibition against going about as a talebearer: “Do not go about as a gossiper among your people.” The traditional enumeration of the commandments expressly includes the duty not to gossip about others.  The second is the prohibition against injuring another through words. The traditional list of commandments includes a prohibition against insulting or harming another person verbally. Words are not treated as harmless merely because they leave no physical mark.  The third is the obligation to judge fairly. Although the biblical command to “judge righteously” has an immediate judicial setting, Jewish ethical teaching applies the principle more broadly: a person should not convert uncertainty, suspicion or partial knowledge into a settled condemnation of somebody else.

This is especially relevant in workplaces, where people frequently possess only fragments of a story.  A worker may have been absent because of a medical condition nobody else is entitled to know about. A manager may be implementing a decision made above them. An employee seen leaving early may have started early, taken approved leave or been sent home. A colleague described as “difficult” may simply have refused an improper instruction.

Workplace gossip strips away those possibilities. It replaces incomplete knowledge with an apparently complete moral judgment.

Why Truth is not Enough

Modern legal culture often treats truth as the decisive question. If a statement is true, the speaker assumes that no further ethical analysis is required.  Lashon hara rejects that assumption.

A truth can be disclosed to protect somebody. It can also be disclosed to humiliate somebody. It can be reported to a person who needs to know, or circulated among people who have no proper interest in it. It can be stated carefully and proportionately, or presented in the most damaging form available.

The relevant questions therefore include:

Why is the information being communicated?

Who needs to receive it?

Has it been properly verified?

Is the disclosure necessary?

Is more being said than the legitimate purpose requires?

Is the speaker trying to prevent harm, or merely enjoying another person’s embarrassment?

Jewish law permits, and sometimes requires, disclosure for a genuinely constructive purpose: for example, to protect another person from harm or to report serious wrongdoing. But the concept of constructive purpose does not provide a blank cheque. Verification, accuracy, necessity, proportionality and motive remain important.  That is the difference between reporting and gossip.

A complaint made confidentially to an appropriate manager, supported by facts and directed towards resolving a genuine workplace problem, is not morally equivalent to spreading the same allegations through the lunchroom.  The content may be identical. The purpose, audience and consequences are not. 

The Three Victims

Jewish tradition says lashon hara harms three people: the person who speaks, the person who listens and the person who is spoken about.

The subject suffers the obvious injury. Reputation is weakened. Relationships change. Opportunities may disappear without explanation. Colleagues who once behaved warmly become guarded. Managers begin interpreting ordinary mistakes through the lens of an allegation the employee may never have been told about.  The listener is also changed. Once a derogatory story has been heard, it becomes difficult to return to neutrality. Even where the listener says, “I don’t know whether it’s true,” the allegation has entered their assessment of the person concerned.

The speaker is damaged in a different way. Gossip trains the speaker to convert people into subjects of discussion. It also makes the speaker less trustworthy. A person who casually discloses one colleague’s affairs cannot credibly promise discretion to another.

In a workplace, the damage rarely remains confined to those three individuals. Gossip creates factions. Information becomes a form of currency. Complaint procedures become political weapons. Employees learn that private difficulties may become communal entertainment.  Eventually, nobody speaks candidly because nobody trusts the room.

Workplace Policies and Misconduct

Most employers have rules concerning respectful conduct, bullying, harassment, confidentiality, privacy, social media use or behaviour capable of damaging workplace relationships.

Spreading allegations may breach one or several of those policies. Depending on the seriousness, repetition, motivation and consequences, the conduct may justify disciplinary action. Employment New Zealand identifies breaches of workplace codes, bullying, harassment and dishonesty as conduct that may amount to serious misconduct, although the proper classification always depends on the particular facts.

Not every unkind remark is legally “bullying”. Workplace bullying generally involves repeated and unreasonable behaviour capable of causing physical or mental harm. A single rude or insensitive incident may fall short of that definition, but it can still constitute misconduct and should not necessarily be ignored.

Persistent gossip can readily cross the line. Repeated humiliation, exclusion, rumour-spreading or attacks on an employee’s professional reputation may become a serious workplace health and safety issue.  An employer cannot always dismiss this as a private disagreement between staff.

Good Faith Under the Employment Relations Act

Section 4 of the Employment Relations Act 2000 requires parties to an employment relationship to deal with one another in good faith. They must not directly or indirectly mislead or deceive one another, and the obligation is wider than the implied duties of trust and confidence. It requires the parties to be active, constructive, responsive and communicative in maintaining a productive employment relationship.  The application of section 4 requires some care.

Two ordinary co-workers are not necessarily parties to an employment relationship with each other. An unpleasant conversation between them is therefore not automatically a direct breach of section 4.  The conduct may nevertheless engage good-faith obligations in several ways.

An employee who deliberately feeds false or distorted information to management may be misleading their employer. A person who weaponises an internal complaints process may undermine the employment relationship. A manager who spreads allegations, acts upon undisclosed rumours or permits gossip to contaminate a disciplinary process may place the employer in breach of its own obligations.

An employer also takes a substantial risk when it knows an employee is being targeted but does nothing effective.

Good faith does not require an employer to accept every complaint as true. It does require the employer to respond constructively, investigate appropriately, protect both sides and avoid allowing rumour to substitute for evidence.

Defamation Does Not Stop at the Office Door

Workplace gossip may also become defamation.

A damaging allegation does not have to appear in a newspaper or on Facebook. Spoken and written communications circulated among colleagues can be publications for the purposes of defamation law.  New Zealand law recognises truth as a defence where the defendant proves that the defamatory imputations were true, not materially different from the truth, or that the publication as a whole was substantially true. 

Honest opinion is separately available where the statement is genuinely opinion and rests upon an adequate factual foundation.  That is not the same as saying:

“I believed it.”

“Everybody was saying it.”

“I heard it from somebody reliable.”

“It was just my opinion.”

Repeating an allegation does not prove it. Calling an assertion an opinion does not necessarily make it one. A statement such as “I think she falsified her timesheets” may still convey a factual allegation requiring proof.  A confidential report made to the right person for a legitimate workplace purpose may sometimes attract qualified privilege. But privilege is not unlimited. Under the Defamation Act, qualified privilege can fail where the publisher was predominantly motivated by ill will or improperly took advantage of the occasion.

Again, secular law arrives at something resembling the older moral distinction.  Was the disclosure a responsible report, or an opportunity to injure?

When You become the Subject of Workplace Gossip

The natural response to gossip is often to fight rumour with rumour.  That is usually a mistake.  A person who answers every whisper, confronts every suspected participant or begins circulating counter-allegations may enlarge the dispute and create legitimate concerns about their own conduct.

A more disciplined response is required.  First, record what has actually happened. Note dates, words used, people present, messages sent and any identifiable consequences. Distinguish what you know from what you suspect. “Three colleagues stopped inviting me to lunch” is an observation. “Management has ordered everyone to ostracise me” is an inference unless supported by evidence.

Second, preserve relevant communications. Emails, messages, meeting invitations, performance records and contemporaneous notes may later become important. Do not alter records or obtain information through improper access.

Third, place the employer on notice. A complaint should identify the statements or behaviour complained of, who was involved, when it occurred, why it is harmful and what outcome is sought. Employment New Zealand recommends providing a clear chronology, names, dates, words used and the consequences of the conduct.

Fourth, ask for a process rather than demanding immediate punishment. Appropriate requests may include:

• preserving relevant communications;

• directing employees not to circulate the allegations further;

• identifying any formal allegations made against you;

• appointing an impartial investigator;

• giving you the evidence and a fair opportunity to respond;

• correcting demonstrably false information;

• protecting the confidentiality of everyone involved; and

• ensuring that no retaliatory action is taken.

Fifth, obtain representation early if the gossip has entered a disciplinary, restructuring or performance-management process. Once an employer begins relying upon allegations, the issue is no longer merely social. It may affect the employee’s continued employment, professional standing and future income.

Finally, do not delay. Most personal grievances must be raised with the employer within 90 days of the relevant action occurring or coming to the employee’s attention. Defamation claims are also subject to limitation periods, generally including a two-year primary period.

The Employer’s Responsibility

Employers should not attempt to eliminate all informal conversation. That would be impossible, oppressive and undesirable.

They should, however, make a clear distinction between protected reporting and recreational accusation.

Workers must remain free to raise genuine concerns about misconduct, safety, harassment, discrimination, fraud and other wrongdoing. Silencing complaints under the label of “gossip” can be as destructive as permitting gossip itself.  The proper answer is a credible reporting process:

Concerns should be taken to an appropriate person. They should be treated confidentially where possible. Facts should be separated from assumptions. The accused person should receive a fair opportunity to answer. Conclusions should follow evidence rather than popularity.

Most importantly, managers should refuse to reward the informal circulation of accusations.

A workplace that tolerates gossip but punishes formal candour teaches employees the worst possible lesson: whisper first, substantiate later.

Words Create the Workplace

Lashon hara rests upon a demanding proposition.  A person does not acquire an unrestricted moral licence to distribute harmful information merely because the information is true.

Truth matters enormously. But so do purpose, context, audience, fairness and necessity.  The same principle belongs in modern employment relationships.  Employees must be able to report wrongdoing. Employers must be able to investigate. Managers must sometimes communicate difficult facts. None of that requires the casual destruction of another person’s dignity.

Every workplace is partly constructed out of speech: instructions, explanations, complaints, praise, criticism and ordinary conversation.

When speech is responsible, it creates trust.  When speech becomes a weapon, it creates a workplace in which nobody is safe from the next story.