The Benefits of Eavesdropping on Office Conversations

It is one of the hardest things about working in an office: You are constantly overhearing other people. Sometimes it is just distracting chatter. Sometimes it is the proverbial “too much information” about people’s lives or projects. And, of course, sometimes other people are listening in on you.

But what if the ability to eavesdrop is a benefit for your work life, not a negative?

Workers can gain a host of insights from the buzz of conversations around them, some executives and researchers say. Eavesdropping not only can deliver information about what is happening at the company, it can help people understand their colleagues’ mind-sets, workloads and moods. It can help people learn who’s who in the organisational structure and pick up tips on how to have certain kinds of conversations. Some workplaces are even trying to create opportunities for this kind of informational osmosis to occur.

This new respect for eavesdropping is driven in part by the return to work after the pandemic. Employees are starting to realise how much they benefited from the information they absorb by seeing co-workers in person—anything from weekend plans to forthcoming work projects.

“They have more opportunities to listen in on the water-cooler conversations,” says Johnny Taylor, chief executive of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management.

Chattering classes

Robert Burns, a marketing director at Sunnking, an electronics recycler in Brockport, N.Y., says that he often eavesdrops on co-workers as they make their business calls. It helps him better understand how they speak about the company to clients or vendors, which, in turn, helps him pick up tips on what does and doesn’t work, he says.

After overhearing them, he also has given co-workers “talking points” to help them use less industry jargon when discussing the recycling business. The object, he says, is to make it easier for them to relate to clients. “It benefits me in this role and my team to hear what everyone is doing—whether they like it or not,” he says.

Burns is careful of what is said in more hushed tones around the office. When he overhears information being said in a whisper, he is more hesitant about bringing it up later or in meetings. “I can probably hear it, but I don’t need to acknowledge it,” he says. “It’s kind of an unwritten understanding.”

The biggest benefits to eavesdropping go beyond hearing what is said, according to researchers. Seeing who is talking to whom can make it easier to accurately map out other people’s networks, says Hillary Anger Elfenbein, professor of organisational behaviour at Washington University in St. Louis who studies the topic. With that knowledge, employees can better understand how to influence company decision makers based on whom they know or where to turn to find information.

In her research, she found that most employees find it difficult to accurately define these networks without in-person opportunities. Even if the chat is muffled, “you hear about the relationship between them,” she says, through cues like body language.

In recent years, when fewer people are in the office, being in a situation to overhear conversations is also “more valuable for the eavesdropper,” says Elfenbein. With fewer chances for in-person conversations taking place, every chance to listen in is all the more important.

Deploying design

Many companies are starting to see the benefits of promoting awareness of workplace behaviours, including overheard conversations, and are exploring office layouts that encourage the practice, says Brian Stromquist, who leads the technology workplace practice at design and architecture firm Gensler. Specifically, he is seeing more interest from companies that want eavesdropping to serve as an informal way of mentorship between junior and senior employees. A newer employee can benefit simply from overhearing a more senior person participating in a meeting, solving a problem or leading a project.

“Eavesdropping is seen as a subset of observation where junior employees can observe leadership qualities,” he says.

From a design perspective, that means Gensler is now creating more spaces where there are different areas that are explicitly designed to encourage and discourage listening, “allowing for a spectrum of acoustic privacy,” says Stromquist, who is based in San Francisco. For instance, an area of open desks may make it purposely simple to overhear conversations, while another part of the floor may use music or white noise to create an atmosphere more conducive to privacy, he says. Deep-focus spaces or quiet libraries are explicitly places where employees should not be listened to, he adds.

“As people are re acclimating to the office, they’ve kind of established this new set of protocols that really recommend how you might use new spaces within the office,” he says.

Mind your manners

Of course, no one recommends purposely seeking out private or personal conversations to listen in on. And you should only act on information that you overheard without violating somebody else’s privacy.

“You don’t want to create a culture where people feel like you’re big-brothering them and hearing everything they say,” says Adam Struck, founder of Struck Capital, a venture-capital firm based in Los Angeles.

It is possible that employees in certain roles are more likely to be in need of eavesdropping for success, says Leila Bighash, assistant professor of communication at the University of Arizona, who studies social eavesdropping. Previous research showed that nurses, physicians and hospital staff were more likely to consider eavesdropping at work as integral to their job because they could overhear information at a cardiac intensive-care unit that was critical to a patient’s health.

People in a cutthroat work environment may also benefit more from eavesdropping, Bighash says. In those workplaces, people may be more reluctant to share information in direct conversation with certain people. So employees who listen to others can learn about projects outside of their department, or potential conflicts or challenges.

Digital eavesdropping

Eavesdropping doesn’t have to be confined to in-person conversations. With so many people keeping in touch with far-flung co-workers digitally, there are now more companies replicating the office environment by offering more opportunities for digital eavesdropping, says Paul Leonardi, professor of Technology Management at UC Santa Barbara.

One opportunity to digitally eavesdrop is through Slack channels or other messaging apps that allow for many participants, he says. Another is for people to access company materials and presentations online or by listening to recorded Zoom calls that aren’t directly related to their work, says Leonardi.

Leonardi suggests using messaging apps, including Slack, to get a sense of other employees’ lives, especially outside of work. In his research, he finds that information from this kind of digital eavesdropping—such as details about a vacation—makes a good ice breaker when approaching these same workers offline.

“People’s comfort at reaching out to other people on whose information they have eavesdropped increases if they know stuff about them,” he says.

But be cautious when using overheard information, says Deborah Grayson Riegel, an executive coach in Chapel Hill, N.C., who works with large companies on communication. Much of the time, employees need to be aware that some of the information may be confidential, jeopardise company initiatives or simply be interpreted incorrectly.

“You need to understand that you are hearing it out of context, and it’s not the full story,” she says.