While most employees will regulate their behavior at work, not all will. In fact, some will actively go out of their way to make your life as difficult as possible, causing trouble where there is no need to cause trouble.
However, the annoying staff member isn’t just a nuisance. They can be very expensive. Dealing with them takes time and energy that you can direct elsewhere, increasing your productivity and driving your business forward.
In this post, we look at some creative ways to deal with annoying employees and help get your business back on course.
Start Paying More Attention to Them
When an employee starts acting up, many leaders stop paying attention to them, hoping that their behavior will subside. However, that barely happens. In many cases, it gets worse over time. These employees do not believe that you have an interest in helping them, so they become more and more hostile to the company.
If you’ll stop disruptive behavior, you need to investigate deeper and find out what the problem really is. The more you can find out about their roles and find out what is going on, the bigger you will be the ability to develop creative solutions which tackles the underlying problem successfully. Call them for a casual chat to find out what happened to them.
Be Clear About What You Want
If that strategy does not work, talk to the annoying employee about what you want from them. Be honest about their behavior and surprise them so they change their ways. If they cause problems, discuss the impact on the rest of the business.
Stay Professional
Always speak to employees in a professional manner, not from your personal emotions. Treat your interactions as a process, even if you feel like screaming at times. Staying in a professional frame of mind helps you reach resolutions with employees more quickly.
If necessary, become involved drug and alcohol testing. Find out if the worker’s bad behavior is driven by a substance that’s prohibited under company policy. This way, you can begin compiling compelling reasons to fire them from their jobs that the labor courts cannot challenge.
Track Their Progress
Annoying employees generally do not want to listen to what they’ve to do. But it is important for leadership to track their progress over time and then reward them for making improvements.
If arriving late is a problem, start watching when employees have problems in fact arrived. If they’re only late once a month rather than daily, that’s a significant improvement.
Tell Them What Will Happen If They Don’t Thrive
Finally, if the disruptive employee will not listen to reason, tell them the implications of failing to thrive. Give them a date where you expect a change in their behavior. If they cannot do it, remove them from their current position and provide them a job they can do. If that option is not available, ask them to leave for good.
