Organizational, Departmental and 1-on-1 Initiatives for Addressing Toxicity in Your Workforce

Most organizations have employees who, on occasion:

• Complain & gossip excessively
• Use inappropriate language
• Are mildly insubordinate

Toxic Employees have interpersonal styles that demonstrate a pattern of counter-productive work behaviors. While
Emotionally Intelligent employees are aware of their feelings and those of others and exhibit a pattern of appropriate self-management.

The toxic employee problem is surprisingly prevalent, with research showing:

• 95% of employees have & 64% are currently working with a toxic employee
• 50% of employees thought of quitting & 12% did because of a toxic employee
• 25% of employees have reduced their work effort due to a toxic employee
• 20% of employees feel they are a target weekly & 10% of employees see toxic behavior daily

Toxic employees cause significant overt, covert, people-related & financial damage, with their visible behavior just being the tip of the iceberg. For example, in one organization, the day a former employee left is considered one of their annual holidays.

I. Human & Financial Costs Resulting from Toxic Employees

Toxic Employees Create:

• Chaos & unnecessary complexity
• Overt damage
• Covert damage
• Strife, stress & emotional damage
• Productivity, quality & financial losses

II. The A, B, C’s Related to Toxic Employees

• Employee attitudes
• Employee behaviors
• Consequences that managers can exert

III. The Psyche of a Toxic Employee

• Frequently seen toxic behaviors
• Utilize ‘star status’ & technical expertise to intimidate & manipulate
• Chameleon who knows who to flatter & who he/she can abuse Turn their toxicity on & off depending on the impression they want to make
• Three common forms of toxic behavior

IV. Common Reactions to Toxic Employees That Frequently Don’t Work

• Restructuring his/her job to accommodate the toxic employee
• Tolerating toxic employees who bring rare expertise or experience
• Not assertively seeking feedback from employees as to whether there is toxic behavior in the workplace
• Not communicating to all employees, the specific behaviors that will not be tolerated – with associated consequences

V. Effective Approaches for Addressing & Preventing Toxicity
Organization-wide strategies:

• Making positive interpersonal behavior an organizational value
• Evaluating interpersonal behavior as a part of the performance appraisal system
• Training leaders in how to address toxic behavior
• Using behavioral-based interview questions to screen toxic applicants
• Exit interviewing to identify any toxic behavior in the workplace.

Departmental & team strategies:

• Defining appropriate interpersonal interactions with behavior-specific descriptions & standards
• Departmental & team strategies:
• Defining appropriate interpersonal interactions with behavior-specific descriptions & standards

One-on-one strategies:

• Stating explicitly that the behavior is not acceptable & why
• Describing both the unacceptable & acceptable behavior
• Asking the employee to commit to & describe how he/she will change his/her behavior
• Frequent, targeted counseling feedback
• Executive coaches
• Progressive discipline
• Termination

But even terminations are not a cure-all because the:

• Toxic-enabling people & organizational culture tendencies may remain
• Employees may still be resentful of the way the employee treated them & the time it took the organization to react
• Expertise & experience of the toxic employee are lost.

Clever toxic employees:

• Utilize their technical expertise to intimidate & manipulate
• Know who to flatter & who they can abuse
• Turn their toxicity on & off depending on the impression they want to make

Unfortunately, organizations can work against themselves & even promote toxicity by:

• Restructuring his/her job to accommodate a toxic employee
• Tolerating toxic employees who have valued expertise
• Not assertively seeking employee feedback as to whether there is toxic behavior in the
• workplace
• Not communicating to all employees, the specific interpersonal behaviors that will not be tolerated – with the associated consequences

Managers sometimes attempt to fix this type of problem by addressing a toxic employee's attitude.
And while a toxic employee's attitude certainly affects his/her behavior, managers usually find that
controlling an employee's attitude is next to impossible.
 
Managers can be much more effective by:

• Discussing the specific behaviors that are negatively impacting other employees and/or the organization
• Using positive & negative consequences to influence that behavior.

• Anyone with managerial or leadership responsibility.