Toxic employees can affect everything from a company’s day to day activities to the big picture of a business’ culture and profit. Identifying toxic employees and dealing with them can be tricky, but is definitely necessary. Doing so will help to protect your company culture and bottom line.
Identifying
There is a difference between a toxic employee and a difficult employee. A difficult employee may be going through a hard time personally and might just need a bit of counseling or personal time to work through their issues. A toxic employee works like a virus. They arrive to work and quickly spread their negativity around like an infection.
Handling
Once identified, it is important to separate the toxic employees from the actively engaged employees. This is largely due to the ways that the actively disengaged employees spread their bad behavior.
A one-on-one discussion with a toxic employee should be the first step in trying to determine the cause of the negativity. Doing so may create a starting point for remedying the situation or possibly identifying a deeper issue within your organization. Discussing the behavior with the employee may bring the issue to the surface for them and make the offender aware of their behavior that they may not have recognized before. If the negative behavior persists the next step might be to terminate the employee’s employment.
Need more tips on handling difficult employees or acquiring great new employees? Connect with us to assist you with your staffing needs, and contact Staff Force today.