Negative employees can cause a huge decline in morale for your other employees, which in turn can have a huge impact on how well your business meets its goals and bottom line. Surprisingly, these employees aren’t usually the ones making big mistakes. This can make it harder to spot bad employee attitudes in the workplace. Here’s what you can do to pinpoint negative employees and turn things around.
As you take a good look at your workplace environment and observe what kind of employee attitudes are being exhibited, keep an eye out for certain behaviors that indicate negative employees. Every employee will complain from time to time but take special note of those who seem to go out of their way to complain about their jobs and exaggerate issues with other employees. Negative employees also take part in office gossip, including starting rumors that cause friction between their co-workers and talking behind their co-workers’ backs. Your other employees certainly won’t be able to concentrate very well with these hurtful distractions filling the workplace. Employees that exhibit these behaviors bring down the overall performance of your other employees and will need your guidance to adopt a more positive outlook.
When you are in this process of reviewing your employees and spot some employee attitudes that could be harming the success of your business, there are a few things to consider before moving forward. Consider the possible impact of their behavior and how it could be affecting the entire workplace, including the work of your other employees. Ask yourself how these employees’ actions diverge from the standards of acceptable employee behavior. Then imagine how morale and productivity would be affected if those negative employees came to work with a more positive perspective. Taking some time to think about each of these situations will help you dig deeply into the issue and come up with creative solutions that benefit everyone and turn those bad employee attitudes around.
In order to change your employees’ behaviors, you’ll need to establish a solid policy of how you expect your employees to act and hold everyone accountable to these standards. This is just the first step, however. To make a real impact on negative employees, engage them in a one-on-one conversation. A successful coaching session will remind your employees that their success with your business depends on their behavior while emphasizing the positive impact that a change in attitude will bring. Be specific with your employees about what actions are harmful and how you want them to improve upon those actions. Allow your employees to voice their opinions but always steer the conversation back to the central topic. Avoid attacking your employees with accusatory phrases since this will likely cause more negativity. Instead, remind them that you are all working together toward a common goal.
If you have negative employees, it is possible to turn them around and bring your enjoyable and productive environment back. Take note of any unwanted employee attitudes and consider how your business is being impacted by them. Establish a baseline of acceptable employee behaviors and open up a positive discussion with any particular employees that you feel need an attitude change.
