Online Induction >> Toxic Employee Induction

Published 22/04/2021

Toxic Employee Induction and how to deal with a difficult Employee

Toxic employees tend to cost organizations time, money, and retention. Your team will suffer, and the company culture is likely to deteriorate the more a toxic team member continues to stay in the organization. Toxic behaviors such as gossip and negativity often affect retention and engagement. No employee likes to work in an unhappy workplace.

Toxicity in some organizations usually arise from poor induction processes. To make a good start for an employee, make sure that the entry process covers all the crucial information they need.

What is a Toxic Employee?

Toxic employees are the distracting, draining, and destructive individuals of the workforce in an organization. They usually start with an appalling array of annoying behaviors, from being mildly annoying to completely intolerable.

Toxic employee traits include:
- Excuse makers
- Angry individuals
- Gossiping
- Lonely wolves
- Complainers and ever-knowing
- Lazy and lack self-motivation
- They don't help their colleagues
- Irresponsibility

In case you have toxic workers within your team, that behavior has to be stopped immediately. They usually irritate their colleagues and clients with their hostile demeanor, and it becomes more worrying how the negativity fast spreads among the team. If left in the workplace for long without any actions being taken, they will cause devastating damage. Types of Toxic Employees Every workplace culture has tremendous effects on the employees that may be either positive or negative. Negative individuals become toxic, leading to decreased productivity and loss of talents. Additionally, toxic employees take many different forms.

They are grouped into:

- Overreacting to stress, threatening, swearing, and yelling at their workmates
- The employee that overshares sensitive company information with external stakeholders or competitors.
- Employees who are good at delegating work and do very little at the end of the day
- Tells tall tales, gossips, and fibs. They always lie to the customers and management about work and outcomes.
- Doesn't value clients by treating them like kings. They usually kill the client relationship in the long run.
- Noticing missing items and unexplained transactions on the company wallets.
- Loves taking sick leaves that coincide with holidays and arrive late for work feeling the big-weekend-effect

To some extent, it's quite challenging for organizations to avoid hiring toxic candidates. This is because individuals put on their charming faces to acquire job positions. Once they secure a job, you will learn of their dark sides, and unfortunately, it might be too late.
Setting up a good induction process may assist in managing toxic employees and get them back on track. This is because inductions affect how employees perceive their skills and how they feel about their jobs and relations with their managers and colleagues.
Excellent induction practices enhance retention. Ensure that the induction covers the organization's core values, expectations, and work ethics.
Always let hiring and induction go hand in hand to assist in shaping the behavior of toxic individuals. Make the induction process clear, relevant, systematic, and comprehensive concerning the code of conduct in the workplace for maximum effectiveness.

Strategies to Deal with Toxic Employees

Many organizations hold on to these toxic employees for quite some time, and they harm the other workers in the process. Managers need to understand when to act against toxicity and when to let the bad influence leave. They have to immediately address toxic employees to avoid negatively impacting the team, organizational culture, and reputation.

Here is how a leader can deal with toxic employees in the workplace:

- Begin by setting up a meeting with them to express your concerns as a manager.
- Implementing anti-bullying policies against bullying traits of a toxic employee
- Establish disciplinary procedures to investigate the wrongdoings of a toxic employee.
- Train a toxic employee on code of conduct, stress management, and give a clear description of unacceptable behavior in the employment handbook
- Document the behaviors. A toxic behavior will rarely manifest itself as a big blowout but relatively minor offenses that add up over time.
- Highlight toxic behaviors in the employee manuals as inappropriate and intolerable. Toxicity should also be covered during the induction process.
- Establish performance monitoring policies to identify and manage lazy employees with poor performance.
- Ensure you give clear explanations and sign an agreement on sharing of the company information to other parties before new employees begin their work.
- Introduction of return to work interviews to reduce the chances of employees taking unnecessary sick leave.
- Terminate the contract. Cutting ties with a toxic employee who's unwilling to change is essential for the wellbeing of the other employees and the organization at large.

Toxic employees are one of the significant issues in many workplaces. If no action is taken, toxic behaviors often lead to a cancerous workplace, ultimately affecting the business operation of an organization. Warnings and contract terminations are the immediate actions taken for severe misconduct.

Employers must know what to do when abnormal behavior arises within the team. The best approach to toxicity is ensuring that there are set policies and procedures that outline what's tolerated and what is deemed unacceptable in the workplace. It will also help significantly if each employee has access to the stipulated policies at any given time!

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