XI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2019

The problem of toxic employees is becoming more and more popular. Toxic employees crush morale and reduce co-workers’ productivity. They bring irritation that quickly affects top staff members and company’s success. Toxic employees can undermine any team efforts that are essential to company growth. It is important to take immediate actions to prevent havoc that can destroy corporate culture. Many companies have toxic employees but fail to deal with them. The problem of toxic staff has both scientific and applied meaning. It concerns the improvement special tools and methods of toxic staff management. Consolidation of professional competences allowing managers to solve complex problems which they face grows in importance.

The present paper analyses the types of toxic employees and investigates the root causes of their toxicity. It explores “the dark side” and discusses the cost of toxic employees. It is aimed at showing the way of dealing with them.

A toxic employee can be considered as someone who has a pervasive and ingrained pattern of dysfunctional thoughts and feelings that contribute to dysfunctional, caustic, destructive behaviors, not only for themselves but others.  They may not be aware of the negative impact that their behavior has on another person or group of people. And, when they are aware, they may or may not even care. When provided with feedback, they may react in either a passive destructive or active destructive manner.

In a research study completed by Michael Housman and Dylan Minor in 2015 at the Harvard Business School, a toxic worker was defined as: "... a worker that engages in behavior that is harmful to an organization, including either its property or people" [1]

Research shows that the estimated savings from avoiding the hire of a toxic employee is $12,489. In comparison, hiring a high-performer costs a company less than half ($5,303 in onboarding costs) of this figure.

Monetary costs aside, toxic employees also have a strong effect on their colleagues. Cornerstone OnDemand’s research shows that when a toxic employee enters the workplace:

Good employees are 54 percent more likely to quit

Team-wide performance drops by 30 to 40 percent [2].

A Harvard Business School study of more than 60,000 employees found that avoiding a toxic hire:

80 percent of employees lost work time worrying about the offending employee's rudeness.

78 percent said their commitment to the organization declined in the face of toxic behavior.

66 percent said their performance declined.

63 percent lost worktime in avoiding the offender.

Based on the theoretical analysis of the problem we identified six different types of toxic employees:

1. The Slacker. This employee is a master at procrastination, passing responsibilities to someone else, and making excuses for why they can't complete their work.

The antidote: ask what’s going on and listen for problems that are systemic rather than individual. If their workload is what’s required of everyone, set clear expectations and deadlines and establish regular accountability meetings to review progress and deliver feedback.

2. The Bully. This employee is overly aggressive with their co-workers and uses their position or intimidating personality to achieve desired results. Some 25-50 percent of workers report being bullied at work at some point in their careers, and the consequences are severe. They include lost productivity, increased turnover, brand and reputation damage, and legal costs.

The antidote: if you spot one of your supervisors yelling, insulting or stepping into an employee’s “personal space”, react immediately. Get security to escort the individual to HR immediately.

3. The Gossip. This person clearly has not moved on from high school and college. They relish in creating drama through rumor-spreading and like to be in everyone's business.

The antidote: if it’s a persistent problem, consider placing them on a performance plan for improvement. HR may need to be part of these conversations to document what’s said and done should this behavior not improve or become more severe

4. The Lone Wolf. "I can do this myself." This employee is the antithesis of a team player. They often present unique challenges because they are usually very high performers.

The antidote: consider giving this person a special project or two to feed their needs without disrupting the normal workflow.

5. The Emotional Mess. Employees who use their work environment as a therapist's office are destructive, even if they aren't malicious.

The antidote: focus on the behavior, explain why it’s a problem and be specific with examples and suggestions for improvement.

6. The Closed-Minded Know-It-All. An organization only grows as much as its people. That’s why candidates, who has mindsets brings negative effect.

The antidote: team building activities and team contests are the best away to minimize negative effect and to broad horizons of employees.

Identifying toxic behavior is very important. Relationships are complex and it may not be easy to deal with toxic people until you have learned from previous interactions.

Today's organizations are especially sensitive to damage that unhappy ex-employees can inflict. This is why it's essential to hire slowly and in a way that provides employees are fully verified with the organizational culture and core values.

Thus, protecting your business from the poisonous influence of toxic employees is vital to prevent havoc and disorganization within your company. Having a toxic employee on team is more costly than just having a bad employee. Their behavior affects entire team and prevents from hiring a better fit. But firing toxic employees isn’t always the best approach; executive may be able to get rid of the toxic behavior and keep the person. People aren’t always aware of their awkward behavior. It is necessary to create a healthy work environment and engage team members by setting an example. If, however, the employer identifies toxic employees, it is always better to have a personal discussion with them, let them know about their problematic reactions and try to understand the reasons behind their behavior. Management methods are chosen according to the type of toxic employee. Knowledge of individual and situational factors that lead to objective toxic behavior can be used to avoid and better manage toxic workers.

References:

1. Housman M., Minor D. Toxic Workers [Электронныйресурс]. - URLhttp://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/16-057_d45c0b4f-fa19-49de-8f1b-4b12fe054fea.pdf.

2. How To Manage Toxic Employees [Электронный ресурс]. - URL https://www.mimeo.com/blog/manage-toxic-employees/