Federal Government and Employees

Rumors can be detrimental to any organization. There are four kinds of grapevine rumors that often lead to unnecessary gossip in any group setting. The first one is wish fulfillment and in this type of grapevine rumor, there is an identification of the hopes and wishes of the organization or company's employees. The second kind is bogey rumors. This second kind of rumor exaggerates the concerns and fears of employees.

The third is the wedge-drivers. These rumors are damaging, aggressive, and unfriendly; splitting and dissolving groups/allegiances. The last rumor is home-stretchers and these are based on anticipation of announcements or decisions. They serve the purpose of filling the gap in times of confusion or ambiguity.

Research provides a figure for grapevine information accuracy and places it at an estimated 80% (Papa, Daniels, Spiker, & Daniels, 2008). This is because the basis of such rumors starts with a personal account that has some honest information in it, that is then interpreted differently as each person hears it. The reason why rumors like the grapevine spread is easy. Humans are essentially social creatures and must talk to each other in order to bond. In fact, gossiping is known to raise self-esteem through feeling a sense of accomplishment by being the first to get information as well as feeling good from the interest gossip generates.

Interestingly, gossip is often not shared with people from different levels. This is because gossip places the two parties on equal footing. This could be one way to curb the grapevine. Grapevines rumors must be lessened as they can occur as often as once a week (Papa, Daniels, Spiker, & Daniels, 2008). They reduce productivity levels, and create disorder among those in the organization. Rumors created externally can hurt the public brand and image of a company/organization.

Rumors tend to reach their highest peak during mergers and acquisitions with many rumors lending to topic such as dissatisfaction with management and job duties. Rumors concerning job security and layoffs can also surface, generating additional instability. To increase stability and decrease grapevine activity, communication is integral. By planning to keep everyone informed of any changes, any new experiences or processes, this will help minimize grapevine rumors. This should be done through face-to-face meetings. However, if this is not a possibility, at least emails can help along with potential Skype or phone meetings.

Putting in place an early warning system may also help keep rumors to a minimum. Having pre-selected people look for gossip and then identifying its source can help diminish grapevine activity. In the same breath, a rumor hotline may be used to allow people with any information about rumor activity to provide information through said hotline. This will allow the organization to keep informed of any rumors.

2.

Group behavior denotes behavior of people in small/large group situations (Levine & Hogg, 2010). While there are a multitude of reasons people join groups, the most typical reason is because said membership helps to satisfy a need for the person. Being in a group offers an individual security and survival, control and power, companionship, affiliation status, and accomplishment. Being part of a group means having some form of social interaction, interdependence, commonality of purpose, and favoritism. Understanding what a group is, is important in understanding how groups influence an individual's behavior.

Individual decision-making and behavior can be affected by another's presence. Group influence on an individual's behavior can be both negative and positive. The three main phenomenon witnesses are deindividuation, groupthink, and groupshift. With deindividuation, an individual relinquishes control and self-consciousness and performs actions according to the groups goals. Often these are goals are negative such as cyberbullying, looting, and rioting. This may happen due to feeling a sense of anonymity in a group. Larger groups create a higher likelihood for deindividuation to happen. People usually in under this influence, will do things they ordinarily would not do on their own.

The second is groupthink. Groupthink is categorized as a psychological phenomenon that happens in groups where there is a desire for conformity/harmony. Those in a group that experience groupthink may attempt to lessen conflict and make a consensus decision forgoing critical assessment of other perspectives or ideas. For this kind of phenomenon to occur, the group must be isolated from other external influences. The group must also have a partial leader, and the group must have a high level of loyalty within the group. An often used example of groupthink is Nazi Germany (Levine & Hogg, 2010). Although groupthink has its negative sides, some say groupthink groups may accomplish more due to their mindsets.

Groupshift examines decision-making and how individuals may make riskier decisions while in a group than alone. A good example of this is moderate liberals shifting to a strongly liberal perspective while in a group. Being in a group when this happens, it allows the individual to feel supported and correct and therefore adoption of extreme views is easier. People often cite in the work environment a change in perspective when there is a work culture ingrained in the company/organization.

People may adopt things and ideals they ordinarily would not on their own due to seeing people in their workplace adopt such ideals. They may shift perspective, perform actions they would ordinarily not, and engage in risky behavior because their peers are doing so and bonding with work colleagues becomes important. A good example of this is drinking. Many companies allow for their employees to drink at meetings and engage in social revelry. If a person does not ordinarily drink, but then sees his or her boss drink, that person may begin drinking to belong in the group.

3.

The federal government has attempted to implements ways in which to reform the hiring practices of organizations. For example, one hiring reform strategy is workforce planning. Workforce planning is defined as: "It is defined as the systematic process for identifying and addressing the gaps between the workforce of today and the human capital needs of tomorrow" (OPM, 2016). Workforce planning allows organizations to align human resource requirements via shaping and prioritizing of mission associated workforce requirements as well as related budgetary considerations to promote effective and efficient carryout of objectives. Workforce planning is ongoing, a cyclical process that has to start prior to the budget implementation cycle.

Another political imperative is recruitment. Recruitment budgets have remained the same or have lessened. This leads to recruitment groups not having the resources or tools to look for high quality employees. Should recruitment budgets increase, organizations can seek higher quality employees in areas and through processes that were not seen or performed before. Along with recruitment practices, is employment branding and identification of strategic recruitment activities. Learning to engage with prospective employees in a way that promotes increased chances for engagement can provide organizations with a better pool of potential candidates.

This is an important due to the kind of practices within the federal hiring system. As Riccucci states: "But federal hiring system is based on the core value of open access so that all citizens have the right to know about and apply for any job, which is very much at odds with the managerial imperative of a fast and efficient hiring system" (Riccucci, 2015, p. 175). Aside from this hiring model, there exists a high decentralized hiring model with the federal government that allows agencies within the federal government to perform their own processes and selection methods to hire prospective employees.