How to manage toxic employees

Toxic workers can damage team morale and reduce productivity but often employers find it difficult to successfully manage these individuals and their challenging, disruptive behaviours.

Often when managers do try to challenge an employee about their toxic behaviour the conduct issues just persist and requests to improve attitude are ignored.

Even the use of formal disciplinary action does not always stop the misconduct from repeating.

However, employers cannot simply ignore the negative attitude, disruption and lack of accountability often displayed by such toxic individuals. The problem will not go away and the impact on the wider team must be considered. Research shows that 63% of employers are aware of one or more employees who had resigned due to the conduct of a toxic colleague highlighting just one risk of failing to address toxic workers.

A WorkNest study into toxic workers has found they can be categorised into the following three personality types:

Disruptors

An employee who is unhappy at work and drags colleagues down with them. They are relentlessly negative. They find fault in most situations and express pessimistic views. They suck the energy from colleagues (like a dementor in Harry Potter), reduce morale and undermine productivity.

Narcissists

An employee who likes to blame others for their own shortcomings. They are overconfident and avoid taking any accountability or responsibility. They find ways to deflect from their own underperformance by highlighting errors made by colleagues. They actively manipulate others and they are weak team players. They can be hard to identify as their behaviours are often stealthy and well concealed.

Aggravators

An employee who will demean, humiliate and insult others. They spread misinformation and set people up to fail. They will exclude people from meetings and projects. their behaviours target specific colleagues or a small number of individuals. They are the most easily identifiable category and their actions are similar to those of a bully.

The WorkNest research found that 44% of toxic employees are disruptors, 31% are narcissists and 24% are aggravators.

How can an employer address toxic behaviours?

• Gather evidence and specific examples before addressing your concerns with the toxic employee
• Implement policies to set out expectations, consequences, and the procedure for addressing toxic behaviour. This will help enable managers to take action because it will be supported by a documented process.
• Encourage your line managers to look out for toxicity and to address it as it arises
• When tackling a disruptor avoid a heavy-handed style as this will risk generating further resentment that just might trigger worse behaviours
• Address issues with consistency to reduce the risk of grievances and claims

Sources: Gavin Parrott, peoplemanagement.co.uk