Is the gossip preventing you from doing your job as effectively as possible? If it is just bothersome but doesn’t really impact your ability to get your work done, then I’d have to agree with your manager’s advice and suggest your rise above it. However, if the gossip is creating bad feelings for you and impacting your work relationships, particularly with the newer employees, then I’d encourage you to address it in two ways.

First, be professional and supportive in your relationship with both the gossipers and the new employees. In other words, instead of reacting to the gossip with anger and frustration, do the exact opposite. By “killing them with kindness,” so to speak, you essentially take away the incentive to gossip about you because there is less and less to gossip about. It’s your “reaction” that feeds the gossip and essentially reinforces it because it gives the gossipers something to gossip about. When you take the reaction away, you also take the incentive away, albeit slowly at first.

Secondly, be prepared to confront the gossipers should the behavior continue. It will be important to: 1) make sure you have accurate information about who said what; and 2) confront the gossipers in a non-offensive manner and on an individual basis. It might look something like this: “There was an inaccurate comment made about me the other day and it was attributed to you. Whether it’s true that you said it or not, I’d just want to encourage you to bring anything about me to me directly and let me be the one to decide what to share and not share with the group. Is that something you are willing to do?”

By directly communicating to the gossipers, you are not only role model effective communication, but you are holding them accountable for what they said. That’s why it is imperative that your information is correct. Assuming it is, between “killing them with kindness” and holding them accountable, the gossip should stop and your relationships should improve over time.