Clever toxic employees:

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

Unfortunately, organizations can work against themselves and 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:

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

Areas Covered

I. Human and Financial Costs Resulting from Toxic Employees, Toxic Employees create:

• Chaos and unnecessary complexity
• Overt damage
• Covert damage
• Strife, stress and emotional damage
• Productivity, quality and 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’ and technical expertise to intimidate and manipulate
• Chameleon, who knows who to flatter and who he/she can abuse
• Turn their toxicity on and 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 and 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 and team strategies:

- Defining appropriate interpersonal interactions with behavior-specific descriptions and standards
- Using team discussions and role plays to clarify the application of the behavioral descriptions and standards

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

• One-on-one strategies:

        - Stating explicitly that the behavior is not acceptable and why
        - Describing both the unacceptable and acceptable behavior
        - Asking the employee to commit to and 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 and organizational culture tendencies may remain
• Employees may still be resentful of the way they were treated by the employee and the time it took the organization to react
• Expertise and experience of the toxic employee are lost

Why Should You Attend

Most organizations have employees who on occasion:

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

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

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

• 95% of employees have and 64% are currently working with a toxic employee
• 50% of employees have thought of quitting and 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 and 10% of employees see toxic behavior daily
• Toxic employees cause significant overt, covert, people-related and 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
 

Ask your question directly from our expert during the Q&A session following the live event.