Handling toxic staff

By the time Andrew Frazer noticed there was something wrong, it was almost too late to save his business. Six months earlier he had appointed a new staff member with a flawless work record and glowing written references. Busy and with limited experience in human resources, he ignored a niggling doubt he had during the interview.

“It wasn’t a rational feeling and it was only fleeting so I ignored it,” Frazer says. “Then, about a month later, other staff just stopped talking to me and started behaving in really strange ways. It took me months to figure out what was going wrong but it turned out to be these terrible mind games this guy was playing.”

Three years on, Frazer says his staff are still traumatised by the bullying behaviour of his new employee, who started almost immediately to display bizzare, unpredictable and controlling behaviour. “Unless you’ve been through it, it’s really hard to understand what went on,” he says. To protect those staff he has asked for his name to be changed.

While it took months for Frazer to pinpoint the problem, the first indication that something was going wrong was a sudden and dramatic change in behaviour of other staff members.

Happy, engaged employees became anxious and depressed, some stopped talking to him altogether, while others became quite emotional at the slightest provocation. Frazer discovered later that his new employee had immediately begun to spread rumours regarding the viability of different projects and campaigns the company was running.

He’d undermined confidence in the company, lying about financial records and told long-standing members of staff their jobs were at risk.

“He’d take credit for things that other people did and belittle them so they didn’t have the courage to defend themselves,” Frazer says. “It all happened in my company, to people I considered my friends, and I still struggle with a guilty feeling that I put people through that because I didn’t realise it was going on.”

Recognising and dealing with Toxic Staff

SYMPTOMS:

A sudden change in the behaviour of other staff.

A refusal to follow pre-existing rules or procedures.

Good staff leave or begin to perform below previous standards.

Staff get emotional, withdrawn or aggressive with limited provocation.

CURES:

Talk to all staff individually as soon as you notice a problem.

Set standards and boundaries regarding staff behaviour at work. Integrate behavourial interviewing into staff recruitment and management reviews.

Integrate behavourial boundaries into performance reviews.

Make it clear you place importance on the way staff treat each other.

Peter O’Neill , managing director of May Day Consulting , says as many as 25 per cent of employees are disengaged at any given time and a proportion of these can become actively toxic within an organisation. In a former role he directly experienced toxic behaviour when an employee who had initially interviewed well but within six weeks of joining the company suddenly became aggressive, turning on staff and forcing people to operate against existing company policies.

“He was very aggressive and demanded that things be done his way, many of which were very different to company policy and set procedures that everyone was following,” ONeill says.

“I started to investigate his activities further and found out he was cheating on the number of work hours for which he was invoicing the company by as much as two to three hours every fortnight.

“When I brought him into my office to discuss these issues, he quickly stood up and yelled and screamed at me that he was insulted by the accusations and that he would not work in a place like ours one minute longer.”

Human resources consultant Vanessa Giannos , says the prevalence of toxic staff is much higher than many managers realise and that their behaviour can be devastating within small businesses where staff morale is often crucial to the success or otherwise of projects.

“Small business owners often enter into denial about the behaviour and the destruction it’s causing because they are the ones who employ these people in the first place,” Giannos says. “I’ve seen toxic staff turn a whole team against a manager or against another staff member and by the time that happens, it can be very difficult to get to the base of the problem.”

Giannos suggests the best cure is prevention and advises that even the smallest business owner should seek professional help when appointing staff. However, she also says the company director or owner must move rapidly to identify the problem, confront the relevant staff member and terminate their employment.

“The most disengaged and toxic staff members find it very difficult to feel empathy or to understand their own emotions,” Giannos says. “They will often know the right way to answer a question at an interview but they will not be able to provide details because they’re not being entirely truthful about their experiences.”

Giannos suggests employers use a technique called behavourial interviewing (see breakout) when speaking with potential employees and that they use a probation period to screen out potentially damaging behaviour before bringing someone permanently into a company.

“If a business owner doesn’t pick up on the problem in time, they risk losing other staff, there will be a drop in productivity and they may well lose their business,” Giannos says.

Perth-based communications skills expert Rachel Green , says it’s important for employers to put the emotional wellbeing of their good staff ahead of toxic staff. They should deal quickly with a problem once it arises rather than be weighed down by guilt.

“If you believe there is a problem, you need to talk openly with your staff about what is going on,” Green says.

“It’s crucial to keep the lines of communication open and not respond by yelling or getting emotional, because that will give the toxic employee more power.”

Green says the best defence against toxic employees is to keep up regular one-on-one contact with all staff and ensure they trust you to listen to and act on their concerns.

“Talk to your staff every week individually, listen to what they are saying and maintain a high morale in the office by showing them you’re responding to their concerns.”

Behavourial interviewing

It is often possible to pick up on potentially damaging attitudes in the interview stage by questioning applicants about their emotional response to particular situations. Disengaged and toxic staff are less likely to be able to provide a detailed response, or to empathise with the emotions of those around them:

Traditional questioning:

Tell me about a time where you achieved a good outcome in a previous job?

Close questioning:

Tell me about a time where you achieved a good outcome in a previous role and be specific about your role in ensuring the outcome was positive?

Behavourial questioning:

Tell me about a time where you achieved a good outcome in a previous job? What were you thinking when you carried out that task, how do you think it made the customer feel? How did it make your peers feel?

Advice from human resources consultant Vanessa Giannos.

BRW

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