What strategy should you take when the bad-attitude employee excels in the technical aspects of his or her work performance?




Every human resources professional has encountered the “bad-attitude” employee; unfortunately, most have dealt with this challenging issue repeatedly. The traits of the “bad attitude” employee are legendary – office morale suffers because of the employee’s overwhelming negativity, and the employee complains about everything, is unable to accept constructive criticism, and blames others for their shortcomings.

Compounding the challenge is the fact that often the bad-attitude employee excels in the technical aspects of his or her work performance. The employee might have detailed knowledge of the organization and its procedures or valuable industry knowledge. Frequently, such employees are hard working and highly proficient at certain tasks and aspects of their performance.

The good news for HR is that there are simple and effective ways to solve the bad-attitude employee problem. In counseling or disciplining such an employee, it is common to identify performance problems in shorthand terms that describe the employee as, for example, defensive, rude, disruptive, insubordinate, or cynical. Such labels do not constructively describe the problem and rarely lead to the employee’s acknowledgement and understanding of the problematic behavior. In fact, such labels are likely to be perceived by the problem employee as inflammatory and unfair and will usually cause the employee to become further entrenched in their problematic behavior. Such terms should never be used in counseling sessions or in written warnings, performance evaluations, or performance plans.

Focus on Specific Behaviors

What should HR do in these challenging situations? First, narrow the issues to the specific problem. Write down the specific verbal and physical behaviors the employee engages in that are problematic – abrupt tone of voice, rolling of the eyes, scowling in a meeting, walking away in a huff, etc. Describe the behaviors in great detail as if you are recording and viewing the verbal and physical behaviors. Describe the behavior in terms of how, what, when, where, and why.

Next, track the frequency of the behavior and identify the impact. Before counseling an employee on bad-attitude issues, you should have at least five specific situations you can describe for the employee that demonstrate the exact behavior(s) that are unacceptable and how that behavior negatively affects the organization.

An example might look like this: “On June 23rd, I observed an unacceptable interaction between you and your coworker, Gary. When Gary asked you when you would be finished with your portion of the report, you looked at him with shock and widened your eyes. You stared at Gary for a moment, then raised your voice and said, 'I’ll get to it when I get to it! You’re not my boss.' Your tone of voice was rude and condescending. You then abruptly grabbed some papers off Gary’s desk, quickly turned around and rapidly walked back to your office and closed the door loudly enough that other coworkers looked surprised.”

Key Step: Communicate about Specific Behaviors - Not Attitudes

You must then tell the individual to stop engaging in the problematic behavior and that future inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated. Too often, this key step is not taken. It is then, of course, essential to continue monitoring the situation and identifying specific behaviors that are unacceptable and bring them to the employee’s attention.

If the problems persist, termination might be the only viable option. Although counseling and disciplining the “bad-attitude employee is challenging, it is essential. Too often organizations tolerate such behavior to the detriment of the entire department or organization. Every organization has the right to demand that all employees act in a professional and courteous manner.



About Lynn Lieber: Lynn D. Lieber, Esq. is a seasoned employment law attorney and a nationally recognized spokeswoman on harassment and discrimination law. Lieber is also founder and CEO of Workplace Answers -- www.workplaceanswers.com/Default.aspx -- a San Francisco-based provider of Web-based legal compliance education. Her areas of expertise include:

· Employment law, changes in laws, and how changes affect businesses
· Unlawful harassment prevention
· Protected categories under Title VII, the Civil Rights Act of 1964
· Sexual harassment prevention
· California’s AB 1825 legislation
· Workplace violence prevention
· Workforce management
· Sarbanes-Oxley/Ethics
· Workplace diversity and related business strategies
· Employment leave laws
· HR policy acceptance
· Legal compliance education