We’re no long in high school or college so all the bitchiness and dram should’ve stopped, right? Wrong. It’s claimed that over 50% of employees engage in office-related gossip and over half of that percentage have negative feelings towards their workplace or organisation.

We all know that one person who comes into the office and never has anything nice to say about anyone, it’s as if they hate everybody they work with and take pride in criticising everything their colleagues do behind their backs. It gets pretty draining being around that negative energy all the time and it really does begin to bring you down after time.

Wherever you work, there is always going to be office politics; he said, she said, power tugs-of-war, backstabbing to get to the top. It’s a fact of life in any organisation because we all want to be successful but not everyone is going to agree on what ‘success’ is or how we should go about achieving it. Some people will choose to be straightforward and others will opt to be underhand.

If you genuinely want to be happy in your work and surroundings then an essential skill you absolutely must master is rising above it all. We’ve devised together a few tactics you could try out before engaging with the drama.

Stand Up For Yourself

If you know you’ve done nothing wrong and somebody is blaming you of something, do not be afraid to stand up for yourself. You don’t need to feel scared of voicing your concerns if you feel you’re being cast aside. Maybe you’ve always been the quiet one so your colleagues might see you as an easy target; I promise you that you’ll never regret standing up for yourself. You don’t have to go all guns blazing or have a slanging match, you can go about things gracefully. Simply arrange a quiet discussion with your manager and explain why you think you’re being unfairly blamed.

Don’t Blame Others

Alternatively, if you know you’ve made a mistake own up to it. We’re all human and we all make mistakes. What’s important is realising we made a mistake, taking responsibility and learning from it. Don’t be that person who can never admit that they have faults and instead blames it others. You’re allowed to make mistakes, nobody is prefect.

Don’t Engage in Petty Chit-Chat

Of course you can have discussions with your colleagues about their personal life, what they got up to over the weekend, what they watched on TV last night or what their lunch plans are. But as soon as they switch the subject to a negative nature, be the bigger person and walk away. You don’t need to be rude about it. Simply, take yourself out of the situation. You could say you’d love to continue but you’ve got work to do, try and change the subject or remember that ’urgent’ that needs auctioning. Even if you’re not doing the gossiping, the listening part will become a burden.

Keep It Professional

That age-old saying ‘never mix business with pleasure’ always crops up in office environments and it’s one that we believe you should stick to. Work relationships are similar to family in the sense that no matter how much you argue or dislike each other, you’re going to have to learn to get on. Don’t make things harder for yourself by engaging with anything more complicated. You need to set boundaries and keep them there.

Stay Respectful

It’s easy to get caught up in the moment if literally everyone around you is engaging in the gossip but try and remember how you would feel if they were talking that way about you. I mean, chances are if they’re willing to talk about others in front of you, what’s to say they wouldn’t do the same about you in front of others? The easiest way to avoid this is to remember to respect your colleagues. If you are kind and supportive of the people you work with then they shouldn’t have anything bad to say about you, and more importantly they won’t be able to twist your words and make you look unprofessional.

Work Hard

You have to accept that in any business or organisation you’re going to be working with people who have different ideas and actions plans on how they’re going to manipulate their way to the top. Whether it be backstabbing, bitching or blaming. The best way to rise above this is to focus on your work and improving yourself. It’ll improve your career aspects and you won’t have to feel guilty about stepping on people when you reach the top.

Hopefully these simple tactics will help you manage your time in the office more efficiently and will keep you from keeping bogged down by any negativity. Feel free to comment with suggestions and let us know how you deal with office politics.