Managing Toxic Employees: Strategies for a Healthy Workplace

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.

Leadership & Management

1 Hour

Description

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 Objectives

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

Target Audience

Anyone with managerial or leadership responsibility

Basic Understanding

No Prior knowledge is required

Course Content

No sessions available.

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Managing Toxic Employees: Strategies for a Healthy Workplace

Session 1: Human & Financial Costs Resulting from Toxic Employees

  1. Toxic Employees Create:

    Chaos & unnecessary complexity

    Overt damage

    Covert damage

    Strife, stress & emotional damage

    Productivity, quality & financial losses

Session 2: The A, B, C’s Related to Toxic Employees

  1. Employee attitudes
  2. Employee behaviors
  3. Consequences that managers can exert

Session 3: The Psyche of a Toxic Employee

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

Session 4: Common Reactions to Toxic Employees That Frequently Don’t Work

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

Session 5: Effective Approaches for Addressing & Preventing Toxicity

  1. 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

  2. Departmental & team strategies:

    Defining appropriate interpersonal interactions with behavior-specific descriptions & standards

    Using team discussions & role plays to clarify the application of the behavioral descriptions & standards

    Utilizing a 360-degree feedback process to assess the work environment

  3. 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

  4. 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 they were treated by the employee & the time it took the organization to react

    Expertise & experience of the toxic employee are lost

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