Stop poor performers from ruining office culture.

By Francesca Di Meglio | Illustrations by Jason Raish

Is there a complainer among your colleagues? Miss Bossy herself? A lazy bum? Just about every office has one of those people who ruins everything for everyone. But it does not have to be that way. You can put a stop to poor performers and meanies who poison the office culture.

SOMEONE WHO is perpetually late, provides poor quality work or just has a bad attitude can create a harmful working environment, says Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D., J.D. and author of A Survival Guide to Managing Employees from Hell. Having one person get away with misbehaving can breed resentment among others. Before you know it, the whole place is stained.

“It’s worse to have a disgruntled employee than no employee, because one rotten apple spoils the barrel,” says Steve Gross, leader of the broad-based performance and rewards consultancy at Mercer, a human resources consulting firm.

Ideally, you should not even let these folks in the door. But sometimes, they are great actors and make it through the screening process. The first step to stopping the insanity is identifying the misfits, of which there are two different types.

The first is a nice person, who is either lazy and lacks a strong work ethic or is simply ineffective. This employee fails to produce and shows lackluster results. The second poor performer can sell and produce just fine, but he/she has a bad attitude or is a backstabber. Both of these workers bring down all your other employees and put your culture at risk.

Those who have the potential to demotivate your crew show signs of bad behavior early in their careers. They often criticize others in public, hoard information, refrain from listening, jump right to arguing, and keep their plans and projects top secret, says Jennifer Forgie, managing partner of OnPoint Consulting, a New York-based organizational and leadership consulting firm. These poor performers also tend to break rules by not showing up to meetings or missing deadlines.

If any of your colleagues exhibit the warning signs, immediately take action—or ask the person’s manager to do so. According to Forgie, one of the biggest mistakes senior executives make is ignoring personnel problems. “Often managers, hoping it will go away, sweep the issue under the rug, and then it just snowballs,” she says.

In fact, Scott warns that a culture can be poisoned rather quickly—which is why it’s best to address the problem as soon as the employee starts acting up.

From the moment you take the reigns as manager, be clear about the fact that you will not tolerate poor performance or bad attitudes of any variety. That should set the tone for employee expectations and help establish a certain culture either within your group or the company at large.

ONE OF the main ways to weed out bad seeds is to be good yourself, says Robert Sutton, author of four business books and “Smart Talk Trap,” a Harvard Business Review article. He adds that if management and other workers are good people trying to do their jobs, then that will become the culture, and others will have to follow suit or risk not fitting in. He cites Procter & Gamble and its CEO Alan Lafley as a prime example. “He is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet in life, so it’s kind of hard to be a [jerk] around him,” Sutton says.

Experts say that the best thing to do with an employee who is giving you trouble is to have a oneon-one meeting. Gross suggests telling the worker what it takes to be successful on the job. Be specific about what the person is doing right and wrong, and what exactly needs to change. For example, if the person is always late for work, demand that he or she must arrive by 9 a.m. sharp everyday.

After you explain your expectations, schedule follow-up meetings and set up a timeline for accomplishing certain goals. Then, make sure the employee follows through on those promises. Experts suggest commending people even for minor improvements. If you can, Scott says, frame discussions in a positive light to give the person incentive to stay on track.

SOMETIMES, the solution is simple: You have to make the employee pay for his or her bad behavior. Sutton recalls an employee, “Ethan,” who brought in lots of money for his Silicon Valley firm but was so rude that he would go through assistants like water. In addition, the human resources department was constantly on the phone, dealing with gripes about him. The staff got so fed up with his antics, Sutton says, that the HR department calculated his bad behavior cost the company $160,000. His superiors then took about $100,000 out of his bonus as punishment. It became loud and clear that this company would not tolerate divas.

Still, these employees have many reasons for causing trouble or not doing their jobs well. Some of them are dealing with personal problems, while others have misdirected ambition or just plain terrible character flaws. A manager’s job is to do his or her best to help, Scott says, who also adds that once you’ve exhausted all your options and still see no change, just let the person go. Sometimes, firing one person is what it takes to protect the company culture. It’s not pleasant, but it happens.

Those few bad apples who manage to climb the ladder to the top certainly will learn that being a jerk or a poor performer is inefficient for business. Once one is in a senior position, he or she must promote cooperation or risk losing the edge in the marketplace.

If you were once among the poor performers on the bottom rung, Sutton says, you will have acquired a set of enemies who are waiting around the corner to push you out. And they probably won’t think twice about doing so.

Maintaining office culture is important for businesses to run smoothly and succeed. So if there’s a weak link in your chain of employees, it might be time to cut him or her loose. ■

Your employees need to feel the love if you want to maintain a constructive and effective company culture. That’s why boosting employee morale is always a good idea. Here are a few tips from the experts on how to keep your people happy:

Be approachable. Sharing what can be improved—and listening to employees’ ideas—is a great way to boost morale, says Jennifer Forgie, managing partner of OnPoint Consulting in New York. Steve Gross, the leader of broad-based performance and rewards consultancy at Mercer, a human resources consulting firm based in Philadelphia, says he has one client who sits with his employees in the cafeteria at least once a week so they can chat about whatever is happening in the office. This openness is valuable for everyone. If senior executives are willing to have open dialogue with their staff, people will be more likely to talk about their problems and issues before they become catastrophes.

Be honest. There’s no point in trying to hide things from your employees. Sooner or later, the truth will come out, and it’s better to give them as much information as you can up front. For example, Gross says, if you have to lay people off, explain why, show you’re not callous, and try to tell them as much as you can about their future and the future of the company.

Be kind. Remember, being honest and showing empathy don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Nice guys don’t have to finish last in business at all, says Robert Sutton, author of four business books and “Smart Talk Trap,” a Harvard Business Review article. He adds that having jerks in the office is bad business. “We can create a world and live a life where we treat people with respect and not like dirt,” Sutton says. If you’re a decent human being, there’s a chance your employees will follow your lead. And that should put a smile on everyone’s face.

Jennifer Forgie, OnPoint Consulting	Steve Gross, Mercer Consulting