What can you do? Be sure that management has a presencebin these areas. No, you should not come in with a clipboard and take names, but employees should expect to see you going into and out of these areas. Management must have a presence, or problems will arise.

Sometimes management is located on different floors from employees. Reconsider this. If moving is an option, consider moving
closer to the employees you manage. If employees know that you will be passing by that water cooler or getting your coffee from the same break room, they will not view those areas as places to while away lengthy periods of time. In fact, consider moving the water coolers and soda machines to areas that will discourage lingering: near your office, en route to reception, or in other high-traffic areas.

• If chattiness is epidemic in your office and several employees are
affected, make a group activity, competition, or game of curbing
chitchat. Give every employee a roll of quarters. Buy a fishbowl and put it in a centralized area. Ask each employee to “fine” a coworker a quarter every time he or she strays to a non-task-oriented topic. Of course, this does not apply to breaks or lunch. At the end of 2 weeks, the employee who has the most quarters left in his or her roll receives all the quarters in the fishbowl.

• Establish a vent time. This is a weekly meeting to talk about all the nonwork topics that employees don’t have time to discuss. This could mean expanding Friday afternoon break time from 15 minutes to 25 minutes and providing sodas, or it could be a totally separate break at a different time. You may not like the idea of giving away more productive time, but you are probably losing much more than this as the situation exists now. Providing employees with time to talk demonstrates your desire to come to a solution that is sensitive to employee needs and happiness, and you will look a tad less like a villain.

• Establish an online vent, but set strict guidelines on when it can be used. Have each employee keep a list of topics that she or he is dying to talk about, but have the employee restrain her- or himself until a time established by management. Management then sets aside a half hour for online vent time. This half hour should preferably occur just before the end of the workday on a Friday. If employees want to stay later to vent more, it will be on their own time. Instant messaging can be used if everyone has access to it. People can announce personal triumphs, such as Junior being in the preschool play, or can get real-world recommendations from coworkers regarding work-related issues. Vents must have a few guidelines, however. See the box for suggestions.

Taken From: 201 Ways to Turn Any Employee Into a STAR Performer