Employee toxicity: ways to resolve a conflict situation

Olga Suganyak, general practitioner, head of the anti-age department of the Academy of Scientific Beauty company (Ukraine)

The “toxicity” of an employee is determined, from my point of view, by the degree of lack of constructiveness in his claims. An employee who, over and over again, finds fault with any management decision without putting forward his own options for resolving the situation, or, on the contrary, agrees, but then behind the scenes over and over again allows himself malicious, sarcastic criticism, is a person who is the main candidate for destroying the morale of the team

As usual, I’ll start my article with a story. This was my first training as a manager. Two thousand is a dusty year - and the first sprouts of coaching on the training services market. My personal trainer set me a development challenge: “You have a highly effective employee. He produces results and fulfills plans, but completely denies the company's goals, constantly demoralizes the situation in the team, and serves as an endless source of gossip and conflicts. What will you do?"

I struggled for almost two hours and developed several plans to neutralize the negative impact of such an employee - from bringing him into work on the principle of remote access, without mandatory presence in the office, and right up to personal psychocorrection.

I think every manager who has at least once encountered a “toxic” employee in practice will understand what a strong recommendation from the coach my training ended with.

Why do “toxic” employees appear in a team?

By definition, a “toxic” employee is not one who argues with the manager or has his own point of view. A constructive dispute, when an employee justifies his point of view in a dialogue and is ready to come to a common decision, is most likely a sign of a person who cares about the cause, who, due to mental habit, reluctance to leave his comfort zone, or simply due to the lack of necessary knowledge, prevents the implementation of a certain new items or changes in work. There is a sound grain in his logic. Such an employee can be perfectly used for “testing” a new idea, identifying weak links in it before its implementation in business life. A controlled, organized conflict-discussion is often the energy that forces all participants to change positively and reveals weaknesses in doing business.

You may make the mistake of hiring a psychopathic personality early on. Such people often show themselves very brightly in interviews, are often excellent actors and have excellent creative skills, which at first can help them prove themselves to be real stars in a team. The destructive influence begins to appear after a month or two, when a person gets tired of wearing a mask and begins to check what will be allowed and what will not. In this situation, the best and strongest decision of the manager will be to admit his mistake in choosing a person and remove him from the team with minimal losses. One of the greatest fears of a manager is to show his incompetence in the eyes of the team, and this often leads to delaying the difficult decision to fire a person, which only aggravates the situation.

But what to do in a situation when an old employee who has not previously been noticed in such “toxic emissions” begins to show “toxicity”? If the employee is efficient, a great specialist? In my opinion, as with a disease, you need to follow the classic medical algorithm - collect and analyze anamnesis, establish etiology and pathogenesis, and choose effective therapy. Well, after all these steps, decide whether the patient is alive or no longer subject to resuscitation.

When an old employee begins to be toxic:

• Often the trigger for the formation of negative behavior is changes in the team. Moreover, the options for changes and the causes of the problem are quite diverse. If the arrival of a new manager, as a rule, conceals either doubt about his competence, or, which happens more often, a manifestation of disappointment in his own unfulfilled ambitions, then the arrival of a new great specialist is a manifestation of jealousy or fear of losing his position;
• changes in the structure of work - worsening conditions of payment, labor, etc.;
• personal problems, etc.

How should a leader behave?

After identifying the problem, it is necessary to develop a program to solve it. Despite the difference in the root causes of the problem, the solution mechanism, as a rule, includes the same steps.

First of all, you need to have a frank conversation with the employee. Describe how you see the current situation from the position of a manager, and listen to how the employee sees it. Discussion is possible if there is a constructive link, since in this situation the problem moves from the category of “toxic” to the category of manageable conflicts.

In the absence of a constructive element of the problem, a forecast of the development of the situation should be clearly modeled in front of the employee. It is very important to keep a cool head and describe the problem as it is, without emotion.

As a rule, the understanding that further failure to complete assigned tasks will lead to dismissal restores the status quo. If the employee remains unconvinced and prefers to write a letter of resignation, it means that this situation was only the last straw and a reason for terminating the relationship. Here, as in the case of a broken favorite cup, which can cause divorce: in fact, this is only the latest event in a series of accumulated negative experiences.

There is no need to be afraid to openly state the possibility of dismissal if the situation is not resolved. Very often, a manager avoids uttering this terrible word until the last moment, but then, out of emotion, fires an employee who, perhaps, did not even suspect how seriously he was harming the team and that danger was looming over him. As a result, the manager receives the stigma of being a tyrant, but the business still loses a specialist.

If you manage to reach mutual understanding about the events taking place, develop together a strategy for resolving the situation.

Ways to resolve a conflict situation

If an employee is unhappy with the conditions, discuss how he can increase his earnings or reduce his workload without harming the team.

If the problems are of a personal nature, then make sure that the employee does not project them into the team, but begins (ideally) to work on them, otherwise personal problems will still lead to a decrease in efficiency from a suppressed internal problem. There are many options for psychocorrection - from yoga and sports to working with a psychologist.

If it’s a matter of jealousy towards the new specialist, then perhaps you need to wonder whether you have infringed on the interests of the “old guys”. Assess together what prospects a new employee provides for business development (for example, increasing the client base, expanding the range of services), which will definitely lead to an improvement in the well-being of all team members. The main thing is that the strategy chosen together with your employee is understood and accepted by him. It is very important to make it clear that you will not tolerate squabbles in the team and personal attacks. Forming a clear understanding of the consequences of destructive actions, and the very definition of what exactly you consider destructive actions and why, will greatly facilitate further dialogue.

What to do if the arrival of a new manager awakens ambitions and jealousy in a specialist at the level of “how is he better than me?” Some trainers recommend giving such a specialist the opportunity to perform a number of managerial functions so that he can become convinced from his own experience of his own inadequacy.

My deep conviction: if you see and are sure that a person will not cope with leadership tasks, you should not give them them in anticipation of inevitable failure. Unfortunately, most people tend not to notice their mistakes, shift responsibility for bad results onto others, and as a result, after failure and the employee returns to the ranks of the rank and file, you will get a completely demotivated and already completely “toxic” person. Alternatively, try to justify the decision, explain exactly what character traits need to be developed, what kind of education to receive. Again, develop a development strategy: in most cases, after a month, the employee prefers to return to his comfort zone rather than spend his free evenings attending management courses or learning a foreign language. If, in his persistence, he really works on himself, it means that you will have an excellent specialist, and you have incorrectly assessed the potential of your employee.

Execution control

Do not let the situation take its course after negotiations. Assess the situation in your team regularly.

What to do if the situation has not returned to normal? Negotiations can be carried out endlessly, but in reality it should be done no more than twice. The third time in the vast majority of cases will end in a break in relations, either on your initiative, if you are a reasonable leader, or on the initiative of an employee who himself sees that he does not find the strength to change. In fact, after the second conversation, you should start looking for a replacement. The chances of understanding decrease in inverse proportion to the number of such conversations, and the “toxic” effect on the team only intensifies.

By the way, my coach recommended firing the employee in that problem. So to speak, “cut without waiting for peritonitis.”

I made conclusions for myself a long time ago: clarity of the situation, overcoming the fear of voicing the extent of the problem and the fear of losing an employee will help in solving the problem of team detox. Between the emotions of one star and the morale of the entire team, I don’t think there’s even a choice.

First published in ​"Les Nouvelles Esthétiques Ukraine" No. 4 (110) /2018