Toxic Employees

Do You Have Employees that Bring Others Down?

Most people would rather be doing any number of activities than working for someone else. Yet most people go through the day, do their job and go home to their family.  Sometimes people are so put upon at work that they become toxic to the rest of the workforce.  Some people make it painfully obvious that they do not want to be at work, deal with customers, or cooperate with fellow employees.

Toxic employees can ruin a company.  We’ve all had co-workers that just didn’t want to be at work.  They would complain about everything from their commute to the temperature of the office to their workload, and on and on and on…Not only do these employees not perform their day to day tasks well but they also infect the rest of the employees with their grievances. Nobody wants to work with a downer for eight hours a day.  It’s unfair to your good employees to have to share space with someone that either doesn’t care about the work or doesn’t want to work.

Toxic employees can also be seen, heard, and felt by customers and vendors.  The mere presence of an employee like this can turn customers away or make vendors think twice about dealing with your company.    We have all been to a business that has one or more toxic employees.  The experience is uncomfortable and unpleasant and the desire to return to the business is non-existent.  If you think you have a toxic employee make sure to document the issues that arise from the employee and deal with them as soon as possible.  Your business is too important to let one employee ruin the morale, focus, and trust of all of the employees and your customers.

Every aspect of the company is affected by these bad apples.  A Harvard Business Review article presented these very interesting statistics that back up this fact.

Christine Porath’s and Christine Pearson’s study showed the following results of employee reactions to toxic employees:

48% Decreased their work effort.

47% Decreased their time at work.

38% Decreased their work activity.

66% Said that their performance declined.

80% Lost work time worrying abut an encounter with a toxic employee

63% Lose time avoiding the toxic employee

78% Stated that their committment to the organization declined.

With these stunning statistics it is very important for business owners to deal with toxic employees quickly and effeciently.  The problem can become so serious as to impact all aspects of the company and just imagine if this employee comes into contact with customers!  Those statistics would be frightening.

Filed Under Human Resources, Management | Leave a Comment  | March 17th, 2010

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