Managing Toxic Employees: Strategies for a Healthy Workplace

About the Course

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

Most organizations have employees who, on occasion:

Complain & gossip excessively

Use inappropriate language

Are mildly insubordinate

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 have 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 the organization is considered one of their annual holidays.

Course Objective

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

Who is the Target Audience?

Anyone with managerial or leadership responsibility

Basic Knowledge

No Prior knowledge is required