While they’re often a nuisance and frequently have to be dealt with, most US business executives concede that workplace rumors are essential to maintaining an acceptable level of employee morale.
“People want to focus on something besides spreadsheets and timelines,” says business behaviorist Mona Levine of the Pisting Institute. “They’re especially interested in things like office affairs and embezzlement.”
Unfortunately, companies are finding that with so many people still working from home rumors aren’t spreading as fast as they used to. Thus, many companies have turned to artificial intelligence to develop and spread them. The results have been mixed
“We had high hopes for some real spicy stuff,” says Wanda Kondrad, HR Director at Chicago Twelfth. After the company paid over $3 million for the programming, the A.I came up with only one rumor: That an employee in marketing had renamed office form 44.4(e) without going through proper channels
“Of course our people were surprised and concerned by this,” says Konrad, “but it wasn’t like learning the CEO may have once worked as a stripper.”
The experience of Spokane law firm Trully-Phoist was entirely different: It’s A.I. spread the rumor that a rogue staff accountant had stolen the identities of all 434 employees, taken their life savings, and spent the money calling 1-900 lines.
“The ideal A.I. rumor lies somewhere in between these two extremes,” says Levine, “and in time companies will get better at programming.”
In defining rumor parameters in the pre-programming phase, she says, there are only three topics to avoid: Murder, terrorism, and squirrels.
