User:Svbenoit/Toxic Employees

Toxic employees are those in the workplace motivated by personal gain (power, money, or special status); use unethical, mean-spirited and sometimes illegal means to manipulate those around them; and whose motives are to maintain or increase power, money or special status or divert attention away from their performance shortfalls and misdeeds. Toxic employees do not recognize a duty to the organization for which they work or their co-workers in terms of ethics or professional conduct toward others. Employees around them wonder why they treat others so badly. Toxic employees define relationships with coworkers, not by organization structure but by co-workers they favor and those they do not like or trust. Not all toxic employees engage in criminal conduct but their tactics can help to keep such behavior from being discovered through fear and intimidation tactics.

The phenomenon of toxicity in the workplace appears to be growing in relation to increases in workplace stress. This is due to lean staffing, the stress of potential layoffs and the fact that longer service employees are typically survive layoffs. Toxic employees often possess a particular technical skill that is seen as indispensible and thus a source of informal power in the workplace. The longer this type of technically skilled, toxic employee works, the greater their influence grows. Co-workers and even supervisors watch these individuals intimidate others and control them by spreading rumors; silent treatment and other marginalization techniques. This is an effective method that causes supervisors to hesitate to provide candid, negative feedback regarding their treatment of others. Another effective tactic is to exploit their long service to emphasize their indispensibility enhance this perception.

This phenomenon harms both the company and the other employees even those who are not direct targets. Toxic employees can be good with customer relations but often are not. Co-workers are distracted by drama, gossip and choosing up sides in the ongoing animosity. This can translate into lost productivity. In addition, keeping the secret of how bad things are becomes an additional source of stress for everyone. While employees are distracted by this activity, they cannot devote time and attention to the achievement of business goals. Positively motivated and ethical employees may try to speak up to a toxic employee but this can make them a target. Over time, positively motivated employees drift away from the workplace and only employees comfortable in the negatively charged atmosphere remain on staff.

Fellow employees may begin to experience physical symptoms from the stress and worry over whether they or someone they care about in the work place may be targeted. This can even develop into a clinical depression requiring treatment, even medication.

At it's worst, a toxic employee can put the company at risk of employee lawsuits when a targeted employee is in a protected class or can put the employer at risk of a retaliation lawsuit when an employee who has spoken up then becomes a target of punishments and gossip by a toxic employee.

Companies who articulate a strong set of cultural values regarding respect and professionalism as well as a performance evaluation system that ranks both technical performance and the professional treatment of fellow employees are felt by HR professionals to be less vulnterable. This may be due to attracting employees with a more professional outlook and/or a better record of confronting behavior which is inconsistent with the stated values.