As your business grows, you will need to add more and more people into the workforce. Hiring the right ones can be hard but maintaining order among the team is even harder. Clashes between beliefs, perspectives and individual personalities and differences can happen, and it’s but normal.
But these differences if managed well can become an asset that drives the whole team towards every goal set by the organization. Yes! Knowing how to develop and manage each talent and skill set that you have in your workforce is vital in achieving overall success.
However, it’s an entirely different story when it comes to a problem employee. These are the type of workers who are difficult to train and work with. The kind that gives minimal to no value at all in making the business grow. And keeping them in the workforce can result to some serious trouble.
From the deterioration of your business’s reputation leading to a loss of customers down to the negative effects that it poses on the team’s motivation, a single problem employee can spell a significant amount being lost in profit. A recent study reveals that losses can reach as high as $8,000 per day and that’s just a rough estimate.
Luckily, pinpointing such kind of an employee isn’t really that hard and there are six obvious signs that can help you find who’s causing all the loses and diminished productivity. Let’s go to the first one:
1. Poor Performance at Work
This is the first and the most obvious sign that you shouldn’t ignore. An employee that underperforms will always deliver poor quality output and won’t be able to meet work expectations. This will then result in their colleagues rushing to provide a remedy for the situation. And the problem would even affect the supervisor then the whole business in the long run.
Usually, it’s incompetence or just laziness that causes poor work performance. An employee is hired to do specific tasks and every detail of it is explained clearly on the very first day. If such employee fails to perform well in doing his/her assigned duties, there remains little or even no reason at all to keep them in your workforce.
Using time and activity tracking tools like Humanity, TimeDoctor, HubStaff, and many others can help you find out who’s delivering and who’s not.
2. Diminished Teamwork
For a business to grow and eventually succeed, teamwork must be one of the values that every employee upholds especially when dealing with challenges. It is never a one-person show! It is essential for every worker to bond with his/her colleagues and establish a good working relationship with each one. Camaraderie is vital especially for employees who are on the same team.
A team member that isn’t interacting that much with others and one who the rest of the team doesn’t want to get into a conversation with needs some attention since he/she can be the cause why the whole team isn’t delivering well. It’s the weakest link that identifies how strong a chain is so a worker who is not capable of building a positive work relationship with the rest of the team isn’t useful at all and therefore must be taken out of your organization.
3. Unteachable Attitude
Most of the time, an employee is hired because he/she already possesses enough knowledge and experience in carrying out necessary tasks. But that doesn’t mean that they already know everything so, therefore, training for skill enhancement or learning new skill sets may be required. Workshops, seminars and other forms of training sessions are the secret of successful businesses and organizations.
They perform these to equip their people better. In other instances, the expertise possessed by an employee is encouraged to grow and develop further through regular appraisal of their performance. All these efforts are useless to a worker who isn’t willing to listen, learn and eventually do things as he/she has been trained to do. Employees who are not receptive to criticism and responsive to coaching are not the kind that you want to keep if you’re aiming to grow your business.
4. Continually Resists Changes
For a business to grow, it must be able to cope up with the changes in current trends and all the other aspects that can affect it both negatively and positively. Companies and businesses that achieve sustainable progress are those that exert effort in adapting to changes in technology, laws, consumer feedback and other regulations. They are the ones that quickly adjust every aspect of their business that needs modification to cater to the evolving trend.
Achieving this requires the full support of every employee in the workforce. Everyone must be able to work towards the new direction the business is going to take. A worker who’s always against any change (even the slightest ones) can hamper growth and take away everyone’s focus from the real goal. Remember that it takes one rotten tomato to spoil the rest that’s in the crate. Replace such kind of an employee and you’re doing your business a big favor.
5. Failure to Take Responsibility
To err is human as the famous adage says and it is true even for your most skilled and highly productive worker. Everyone commits mistakes but an employee that’s worth keeping is one that can take responsibility and offer solutions. A problem employee is one who plays the “blame-storming” game whenever he/she commits a mistake.
Observing this kind of attitude multiple times from an employee is a sign that you need to find someone else to replace the position he’s going to vacate. It is a clear sign of being dishonest and insincere. Such people can be detrimental to your business and the integrity of the teams that composes it.
6. Poor Communication Skills
It is possible that an employee is doing great at his/her job but isn’t capable of communicating effectively with others. The days where communication was viewed as a much-needed skill for frontline customer-facing jobs and managerial roles is now over. Nowadays, even those who work in the back office need good communication skills to contribute to the well-being of the workplace as a whole.
Communication is now essential for every kind of job since the lack of it can lead to confusion and even frustration to some extent. It also contributes to more time that’s lost. A worker who performs quite well in their job but isn’t able to communicate with his/her colleagues well isn’t someone that’s worth keeping.
How to Prevent Hiring the Wrong Employee
The stringent labor laws and even the company processes that exist in your organization can make dealing with a problem employee quite hard. It’s even harder because of the employment contract that’s been signed. Terminating a problem employee and abruptly informing them about it can also lead to lawsuits and claims by the party that’s been aggrieved and it’s costly! The best way to prevent such a problem employee from bringing damage to your business is by setting up a meticulous hiring process.