The Toxic Employee

What are the costs of a toxic employee? In one large company, the cost was an entire previously successful division. As a small business, can you afford a hit like that? Toxic employees can come in many forma and some of them are not obvious.

THE HELPER

Or, also known as the micro manager. They roll the employee’s chair to the side and “fix” the computer problem. Well, that seems nice and efficient, doesn’t it? The problem is quickly resolved. Unfortunately, the employee doesn’t know how to fix it the next time. One team manager helped her team members improve their status reports so enthusiastically that the team spent the entire week improving their previous week’s status reports. In that case, when the next week’s status reports had no hours logged on projects, the reports were “tweaked” to allocate hours to the multiple projects on each team member’s desk. Of course, the managers of those teams did not see any deliverables, so the toxicity spread beyond the department. Can you afford that ill will?

THE CRITIC

As a long-time Toastmaster, I place a lot of value on evaluations, the critiques offered by fellow club members. A critique is not the same as someone tearing down your employee’s work with no suggestions for improvement. A colleague offered to review an executive summary I had just completed. He came back and said, “This is the worst piece of crap I’ve ever seen.”  Not another word. He left. I was reeling. I looked it over again and, while it wasn’t perfect, I could tell it didn’t stink. I sent it to a successful consultant I knew and asked if he could suggest some improvements. He called me up and said, “Wow! That is the best executive summary I’ve seen in ages!” Are your employees intimidated by someone who just takes pleasure in crushing people? How much do you lose if they give up?

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

You have to keep an eye out for people’s reactions. Sometimes the toxic employee is easy to spot. Sometimes, they’re not. Do you have people who rarely speak up? They may feel bullied, or they may be shy, but people’s reactions can be read. If you have a toxic employee, they’re costing you time and money. They’re preventing the most value from your employees from surfacing. For your business success, you have to address it and get it to stop. You may be able to work with the employee, but you may need to let them go.