Acknowledge and Use Your Grapevine

Abstract

Inevitably there will be a grapevine. This will pass news and information quickly, but it cannot be relied on and is likely to encourage ill-informed rumour. It must not be allowed to replace other methods of workplace communications[1].So say ACAS in their advisory booklet on Workplace Communications. This reflects a common view that the grapevine is a communications method that is to be suppressed wherever possible, usually through the use of formal management-initiated communications.However, despite this advice, and the efforts of many companies to limit or disapprove of its use, it is still extremely prevalent. In one recent survey conducted by the author, two-fifths of the respondents obtained company information and nearly a third received job information through the grapevine most or all of the time. Its results supported the conclusion of Hussey and Marsh[2] who pointed out that employees "had a belief in common that the 'grapevine' usually pre-empted anything which management had to communicate". However, this pre-emption does not necessarily imply a lack on the part of the formal communications system. Contrary to popular belief, the grapevine does not merely fill the gap created by ineffectual formal communication systems. It thrives on information fed into it through formal channels. If accurate and useful information is fed into it, it is a valuable support system for the formal system [3], helpful in facilitating organizational goals [4].