We’ve all known one or two of them…that employee who is never satisfied. Always complaining about something, from the workload to the new kind of soap in the restroom. We try to turn a deaf ear to their constant whining, especially if they do good work.
But according to Robert Sutton’s article How Bad Apples Infect the Tree in Sunday’s New York Times, those annoying whiners may be more than just irritating. They may destroy your business!
What??? Sad to say, tis true. EVEN if they do good work! How???
- Bad moods spread like word of a half price sale on unlocked iPhones It only takes one person to spread gloom and doom to everyone in your workplace. You might start out with a dozen happy faces on a Monday morning, but as soon as Mr. or Ms. negativity gets going, all those smiles vanish, and you have an office full of miserable people.
- Unhappy people don’t do good work ’cause they’re busy being unhappy Now, I’m not talking about the bad apple here. Amazing as it may seem, these bastions of complaints may not be genuinely unhappy. For some, complaining about everything is the status quo. And those who exude doom-and-gloom may be content living that way. But the rest of your staff — the ones listening and trying to ignore or deflect the complaints? THEY will be unhappy. And THEY will not work as well as they would without the whiner around.
- Complainers know no boundaries Just like a TSA agent’s hands, going anywhere and everywhere, complainers and mood suckers almost always lack basic decorum. They are just as likely to dump their misery on customers, vendors, news reporters or everyone on their Facebook or Twitter account. So those foul messages and line-crossing exposures are likely to show up in your business reputation. And that can spell disaster for any business that relies on word-of-mouth or repeat customers — which is pretty much every business.
What do I do????
If your business has a Demonator among the staff, deal with it quickly. Check out the complaints to see if they’re valid, talk with the employee to see if you can help them solve a problem, and keep lines of communication open with other employees as well. Try job training, new projects or a change in responsibilities, to see if job frustration is behind the whining.
Sometimes these negative people can learn to control and manage their issues. If it’s a long-term or otherwise valued employee, it’s worth the effort to at least try.
But sometimes, it’s just the wrong person in the wrong job with the wrong company, and it’s time to bring out that final paycheck, wish them luck and send them along their merry way. One apple versus the barrel is pretty simple math.
