Many clients have completed or are currently going through an annual appraisal process. This is a great time to address poor performance. It is also a time to manage out or even fire those toxic employees who are poisoning your culture. So how do you go about this? Whilst I am no legal expert on HR issues, below are the best practices I have seen clients use:
1. Properly document toxic behaviour. It’s critical to document every step you’ve taken to communicate your company’s expectations, including briefing the misbehaving employee about your company’s culture i.e. what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour. Then, if thing don’t go well, continue to share written feedback to the employee and keep written copies of notifications showing the employee was given time to improve. Make sure the written warnings are always signed by the employee.
2. Don’t procrastinate, but don’t jump the gun either. Never allow a toxic employee to fester in your office year after year and damage morale. However do not fire that employee until you have a file full of documentation to show a legitimate business reason for the termination.
3. Always listen to feedback from the workplace. Employees are an early warning system that can help you detect and confront a toxic employee.
4. Give the toxic employee a definitive time period in which to improve and work with them to develop a turnaround plan.
5. Finally, if you fire the toxic employee insist they leave the workplace immediately. One does not want to afford the bad seed one more minute to spout angry diatribes against you and your company. It all comes down to rigorous documentation and rapid, decisive action at the right points in time.
