Is hotel gossip a career roadblock for hospitality workers?

Research showing that workplace gossip is destroying the careers of hotel workers in China raises interesting questions about whether staff in other countries face the same struggle.

Our research findings show that negative workplace gossip has a serious impact on people’s career growth prospects – especially among workers who are most likely to take gossip seriously and worry about how their colleagues perceive them.

While we conducted our research in four- and five-star hotels in the thriving Chinese city of Guangzhou, there is nothing unique about any culture when it comes to gossip. It is a normal part of human behavior with both positive and negative effects in the workplace.

But if the dark side of gossip has been proven to harm the careers of hotel workers in China, could the same scenario play out elsewhere? The prospect that negative gossip could, in principle, damage the reputations and careers of these workers is troubling.

And it’s certainly a credible suggestion given some of the hotel industry’s universal workplace patterns, such as frequent and sometimes intense interactions between staff and relatively fixed interpersonal circles. So it’s important to understand the impact of negative gossip, wherever it occurs – not least because our previous research shows it’s also damaging to employee well-being.

Of course, detailed local research is needed to confirm the presence and extent of any similar problem beyond China’s borders. But it’s an important question to raise, given the potential impact on both businesses and people. As our study shows, the detrimental effects feed back on workplace issues, such as the hospitality industry’s notoriously high turnover rates. With travel and tourism contributing significantly to the GDP of many countries, there is even a potential economic impact.

So is it plausible that hotel workers in, say, the UK or the US will suffer a similar career path to their Chinese counterparts if they are targeted by negative gossip in the same way?

It is certainly true that gossip is pervasive in global societies and that personal reputation can be shaped by both gossip and behavior in almost any setting.

But there are also major differences – these are by no means homogeneous cultures, and it would be a mistake to generalize from one culture to another without evidence. What is clear is that if the same situation occurs elsewhere in the world, no one is measuring it. Indeed, to our knowledge, our study was the first in the world to specifically examine how negative workplace gossip influences the career outcomes of hospitality employees.

In other words, the potential damage of negative gossip to individuals, businesses and the global economy at large is currently being overlooked – leaving potentially thousands of hotel workers to face reputational damage that has gone unrecognized, much less addressed.

If the same patterns emerge elsewhere, it’s also important to ask whether the same solutions could break the cycle of negative gossip and stunted careers. Some ideas could work in almost any global workplace culture, such as better training, collaborative activities to build relationships and support for the most sensitive staff.

But will all our suggested solutions for China travel well? That is less certain. Would managers in Europe or Australia show an equal commitment to creating harmonious work environments? Would staff from both cultures find these attempts equally acceptable?

Again, only full and detailed research can answer these questions. But what we can say for sure is that negative workplace gossip will already be happening all over the world – in fact, in any setting where people gather and work. Unfortunately, we can also be confident that it seeps into the daily life and workplace experience of its goals, and that ignoring it seems very likely to hinder business growth as well as individuals’ careers.

The data will tell us the true picture. But even now, the global hospitality industry might consider proactively addressing negative workplace gossip, given the likely positive effects of such efforts for individuals and companies. Hotel workers could receive new training in interpersonal skills and to protect their own – and others’ – reputations, helping them build their career potential.

It will be up to tomorrow’s researchers to confirm whether negative workplace gossip is destroying lives and businesses beyond China. But businesses today can already take steps to limit the potential damage.