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Unfortunately, cliques aren't a problem that you left behind in high school. Workplace cliques can be just as or even more troubling for you today, especially if they have the potential to affect your career, employee morale and performance, and your medical practice more broadly. This article describes workplace cliques in detail. It provides examples of exclusionary and ostracizing behaviors that are often associated with cliques. And it describes the prevalence and effects of cliques in today's workplace. This article also provides practice managers with 10 tips for discouraging and managing cliques. It describes five common workplace cliques: management, veteran, prior relationship, status, and homophily. It offers medical staff employees 10 strategies for working effectively alongside of a clique. Finally this article describes the pitfalls and risks of belonging to a workplace clique.
KEY WORDS: Gique; diquish; exclusionary behavior; exclude; ostracize; personnel; morale; belonging; coworkers; peer pressure; intimidation; turnover; homophily.
Does your medical practice have a subset of employees who seem to have a language of their own? Do they spend a lot of time socializing by themselves? Do they speak to one another in hushed voices and seem unwilling to let others in on their conversations? And does their behavior remind you of the situation you experienced in high school when peer pressure reigned and there was a strong us-and-them mentality in your social structure? If so, it sounds like you have a clique within your medical practice team.
According to a CareerBuilder survey,1 43% of workers say their workplaces are populated by cliques. The nationwide survey, conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder from May 14, 2013, to June 5, 2013 (among a representative sample of nearly 3000 full-time, private-sector U.S. workers), found that cliques can affect workplace culture in a variety of ways. Notably, 11% of survey participants said they felt intimidated by the cliques in their workplaces, and about 13% said the presence of office cliques has had a negative impact on their career advancement. The CareerBuilder survey also found that employees who fit a specific stereotypical archetype in high school (such as "athlete," "cheerleader," "geek," "class clown," or "teacher's pet") are more likely than other colleagues to be engaged in workplace cliques.
Workplace cliques can lower morale and...