How To Control The Employee's Chit Chats In The Office

Dear Seniors,
Iam Dinesh working as a HR Executive of a small orgainzation.In my company iam the only HR,so i need to take care of all activities in my company.My Problem it is so difficult to control the employees chit chats during the office hours.Everybody used to talk more,they are not concentrate on there work properly.So kindly give me the solution of how to handle this problem and also how to make them interest towards there work..

A policy to address breaks and work hours as well as a policy to monitor employee productivity and efficiency

Dear Dinesh,
Employees are chatting because that way culture is formed in the company. They chat because they have time to chat. They have time to chat because it appears that they are not laden with sufficient work. I recommend you doing workload analysis. Give them stringent targets.
Losing time in unwanted activities is common. There were posts of similar nature earlier. Check the following links to read my past replies:
https://www.citehr.com/494456-please...ml#post2150638
https://www.citehr.com/469565-person...ml#post2084819
https://www.citehr.com/434413-how-in...ml#post1968017
All the best!
Dinesh V Divekar

Dear Dinesh,
1.Let the superiors of those individual employees be resposible to improve the attitude of those employees.
2. Secondly if the employees are meeting their daily work targets, then let them continue with chit chatting only thing is that they should follow certian discipline while doing so.
3. If as per work load the number of employees are more, the company should do away with some of them
Generally in smaller companies such things happen because there is informal relations among the employees. Only ensure that company's performance is not affected due to such practices.
Satish Akut

Go and talk to the employee whom you talking more there will be one or more persons like the due them the whole office will mess so inform them nicely with soft words what happens by chit chatting to each other and tell them talk only when neccesary i mean related to job
do this for two three times
and if not listening means send a personal mail in such a way that touches their heart and don\'t include anyone in CC do this for 2-3 times if not then send a strong warning mail to everyone and include your boss in cc.
May be it works out

Work place is not a school where chit-chat is totally banned. In work places, they may be discussing during the free time. Analyse the performance as suggested by Dinesh Divekar and come to conclusion.
Pon

Dear Dinesh
Here it is a question of discipline./ A casual attitude towards work. /Not fully engaged. /Over staffing./ Absence of work monitoring. /Informal atmosphere. / A superior who takes this easy. / They have not been made aware of the consequences of this attitude. /Many more reasons can be thought about.
Since it is a regular practice you have to create a change. Talk to your superiors about this and get their suggestions too. This habit that has been formed over a period of time can be changed only by slowly taking measures to tighten discipline. / checking on staff productivity. /keeping only adequate staff to do the job after conducting a work measurement study. /
This habit is a contagious one and the earlier you curb it, the less difficult it becomes. Take this issue as you see the bigger picture of bringing discipline to the entire office functioning, thru professional training in general office etiquette.
All the best.
JBT

Hello Dinesh,
Many suggestions have poured in.
Hope you are taking the necessary steps to prevent unnecessary gossip and chit chat.
If more time is lost in chit chat, how is your Company performing ?
Any Company will always have scope to improve at any given time.
With the support from top management, address your staff as to how they can perform better.
If all the people have more time at their disposal, then it is a overstaffed scenario.
As an HR executive, make a study and give a confidential report to the Apex management.
An occasional laughter is in fact good to counter the monotony of work.
V.Raghunathan

It appears DInesh that maybe you are reacting to a particular thread of gossip, rather than chitchatting that employees do as a whole.
All organizations are both political and social constructs. Interactions will be there, sometimes extending a little too much. Chitchatting, as long as it is not malicious gossiping, does more good than bad.
It connects people, and forms good relationships. And truly there is no short answer to get people interested in their work. That is a research of a lifetime. And good employees do not concentrate :) They focus.

Hi Dinesh,

How about considering this chit chat as a plus? Yes.... beyond a limit, anything is bad.

How about considering some activities, like brainstorming, (to solve some of organization\'s issues) to \"feed the intellectual hunger\" of your colleagues?\"

As you are a small organization, it may not be \"feasible\" to go for an \"External Trainer\". How about you conducting such activities.....(I can sense a lot of energy in your post)If you feel that you are not equipped,as of now, you can equip yourself, as a HR pro to conduct such activities...Nowadays, you have lot of material is available in sites like HR forum...(which was not there when I started)

If one hour is not permitted, you can even have activities for half hour....may be after lunch....

Still, if you need any practical help, you can send your query as a mail or call for FEW MINUTES over phone. (I have handled this type of issue without any \"action\".)

\"Action\" from our end should be the LAST resort... and this is my personal credo.

Regards

J.Srinivasan

jsrinivasan@hayakawa.in

9445636855

DGM-Trg,

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