5 Things I’ve Learned About Dealing With Difficult Employees

It’s a bit inevitable, isn’t it? As a small business employee knows all too well that hiring employees is a big job—and hiring the right ones is even trickier. Don’t put yourself in the position of hiring someone that doesn’t fit your day-to-day operations. Even worse, don’t put yourself in the position of hiring an employee that you can’t pull the trigger on to let go. There are ways to deal with problem employees in a defined timeframe that won’t have a negative impact on your business or current employees.

Managing Difficult Employees

Every small business has its challenging personalities: The “yeller” is someone in your office who talks loudly and tends to distract and annoy others. The “loafer” is the person who’s known for goofing off. The “meddler” is the nosy gossiper who sticks their nose into people’s personal lives and asks rude questions. These and a few others are typical types of difficult employees you’ll often find in your office. But how can you prevent these problem employees from hurting your small business?

As a business owner with 10 employees, I know these people. I really know them. And a few things about how to deal with them—the hard way, unfortunately. But let me share with you five things I’ve learned about managing difficult employees.

Tips for Dealing With Difficult Employees

1. Accept that every employee is a problem employee

For a while, I would get annoyed when people didn’t behave the way I would behave in a professional environment. I would get frustrated when someone didn’t demonstrate the same work ethic or just said things I wouldn’t say. But after a while—and after interacting with a lot of employees—I came to this realization: No one’s perfect. Least of all, me. You are employing humans and humans have their quirks. You’re never going to find that perfect person. Some will work harder than others. There will be people who like to gossip. You will have introverts and extroverts, narcissists and those that are charity-minded. There will be grumps, complainers, and whiners. You will employ people who are overly enthusiastic, highly energetic, and super-active. Sometimes people will come in late, miss work, blame others, hide their mistakes, and make excuses. These are humans, so, by definition, you should be setting your standards low and give your people every opportunity to exceed your expectations. There will always be problem employees, all that matters is how you handle the situation moving forward.

2. Don’t be afraid to get rid of someone

Of course, when you’re running a small business, even just the loss of one employee can have a very disruptive effect. But sometimes I’ve used that as an excuse to hold onto people. I’ve been lazy or I hope against hope that problem behavior will just magically go away. It never does. So instead, I hang onto an employee because I don’t want to endure the inconvenience of losing that person and then having to go through the time and cost to find someone else.

At some point, I began to realize that this thinking is wrong, because in the instances where I did let someone go—for whatever reason—I looked back months later and kicked myself that I hadn’t made the move a long time before I did. By not doing so, I not only caused more problems in the office but also I wasn’t showing my existing employees the respect they deserve. No one deserves to come to work and be uncomfortable or be around people they don’t like, especially when it distracts them from doing the job they were hired to do.

The lesson: Don’t punt the problem away. Deal with managing difficult employees. The odds are in your favor that it will be the right move.

3. Evaluate the person as an asset

Sometimes we forget that, as much as we love our people, it’s unlikely that we would have much—if any—of a relationship with them if they weren’t working for us. In the end, your relationship with your employee is a professional one. It’s employer-employee. It’s an implied contract. It’s subject to laws and rules. I know it sounds a little cold, but when a company says its greatest asset is its employees, then we must all accept the fact that yes, our employees are just that: assets.

The most effective way to avoid getting hurt from your problem employees is to evaluate that person quantitatively, based on metrics that can be benchmarked and compared to goals. When the numbers aren’t matching up, it’s easier to show that person the door.

Where things get complicated is when that “problem” employee—the grump, the narcissist, the meddler—is also a very profitable one. That’s when subjectivity has to take precedence. But are the additional profits generated from that person really worth the aggro caused in the office? Couldn’t a replacement contribute at least as much? This brings me to the next thing I’ve learned about problem employees…

3. Evaluate the person as an asset

Sometimes we forget that, as much as we love our people, it’s unlikely that we would have much—if any—of a relationship with them if they weren’t working for us. In the end, your relationship with your employee is a professional one. It’s employer-employee. It’s an implied contract. It’s subject to laws and rules. I know it sounds a little cold, but when a company says its greatest asset is its employees, then we must all accept the fact that yes, our employees are just that: assets.

The most effective way to avoid getting hurt from your problem employees is to evaluate that person quantitatively, based on metrics that can be benchmarked and compared to goals. When the numbers aren’t matching up, it’s easier to show that person the door.

Where things get complicated is when that “problem” employee—the grump, the narcissist, the meddler—is also a very profitable one. That’s when subjectivity has to take precedence. But are the additional profits generated from that person really worth the aggro caused in the office? Couldn’t a replacement contribute at least as much? This brings me to the next thing I’ve learned about problem employees…

4. Hire/fire with the goal of minimizing people in your life that you don’t enjoy being around

Right? Life is just too short, and we are all spending too much time in the office to be around people that we don’t like being around. I’m not saying you have to be best friends with every employee, but you—and your employees—should enjoy coming to work and being with the others there. If there’s an employee who is creating disruptions, upsetting others, taking advantage, or just being a jerk, then that’s not someone nice to have around.

Easier said than done? I’ve found that not to be the case. If you’re willing to offer a good wage and decent benefits, you’ll find plenty of people looking to change jobs and come to your business, regardless of how low the unemployment rate is or how strong the economy is going.

Don’t short-sell happiness. Be with people that make you happy, if you can possibly manage that. Wait…you can. You’re the boss! Problem employees need not exist if you do not want them to.

5. If possible, let the employee be the one who decides to leave

My dad taught me this—only it was about customers. “Son,” he used to say, “Never fire a difficult customer. Just price them accordingly and let them decide to leave.” I think the same goes for problem employees. You can do a lot of things to encourage an employee out the door. You can, for example, not give a raise, forgo bonuses, make more demands, or—like the movie Office Space—move that employee down to the basement with nothing but a bare desk and his stapler. At some point, that employee may realize that the writing is on the wall.

If you do it the right way and keep it amicable, then you can avoid fights, lawsuits, and other nastiness that sometimes comes with an employee departure. And besides—who knows when you may bump into that person again? The world is not as big as you think.

Begin Dealing with Your Difficult Employees

When I started my business and it was just me and my dad, we eked out a living. A lot of businesses are run that way. But I really started to make a decent living once I started hiring people. Now, with 10 people in my company, I can delegate work and keep most of them working at clients, doing things I could never do. That’s a great thing. But there’s also a downside: All 10 of them—and I love them—have their problems, so in a way, I am constantly dealing with difficult employees but I choose how to manage it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Next Steps: Do you want more tips and insights to help your business succeed? Sign up for the Small Biz Ahead newsletter to receive a weekly roundup of the latest tools, trends and resources designed to help you grow your business.