It only takes one wrong employee for your business to cause major problems within your business! So what can you do to deal with difficult employees that are bringing down the rest of your staffs’ efforts to keep your business thriving?

Extreme Examples

It’s easier to either put down problems within your workforce to clashing personalities or avoid them altogether in order to avoid conflict, especially in the case of bullying. But in doing so the problem is just going to escalate until it’s completely out of control.

There are three particular types of people that research has shown cause the most problems within a business. The most obvious are the bully and the liar, but also the moaner can cause huge rifts. This is the person that is always complaining about petty issues like lighting or heating which takes up your time and demoralises your colleagues.

Other types of people to be aware of when recruiting employees are those that are classed as ‘personal hygiene sufferers’, ‘sex-site surfers’, and ‘office Romeo’s’.  Specific examples that previous researchers have found out about include people exchanging sexual favours to colleagues while at work, employees lying about having serious terminal illnesses, and even one employee who was assessed by a therapist and identified as a dangerous psychopath.

Compared to the examples above, someone who is an excessive moaner may seem like a minor inconvenience, but ongoing negative behaviour among your employees must be dealt with head-on so that the effects don’t build up and effect your employees.

“You can look to restrict employee behaviour for the good of the business. While you don’t want to prevent people venting opinions, it should be through the proper formal channels as defined by the employer. If someone’s perpetually negative actions are dragging down commercial performance, it needs to be addressed,” advises Guy Guinan of Halliwells law firm.

How To Deal With The Problem?

1) Before anything formal, and therefore time consuming can happen, have an informal chat explaining to the problem-causing employee what effect their negative behaviour is having.

2) Highlight why such behaviour as constant moaning or bad personal hygiene can have on the business – in most cases they may be unaware of the effect their problem is having on others.

3) Make sure you have formal procedures set up to deal with difficult employees. Official measures should be detailed in employee contracts and all staff should be aware of the company policy.

4) Also make sure you have a strong recruitment policy with a detailed screening process so that you can reduce the risk of further problems in the future. After all, prevention is better than cure! If you take measures not to hire these potentially damaging employees in the first place, they can’t cause your company problems.

What Do You Think?

Got any stories you want to share? Any tips to prevent people taking on difficult employees or how to deal with them? We want to know your thought and opinions. Comments here.

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