Is Your “Best” Employee Really Your Most Toxic?

February
17, 2021

5 min learn

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Would you like staff who will go above and past in your organization?

You could be considering this query is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. In spite of everything, the advantages of getting proactive and devoted staff are self-evident. Workers who’re prepared to go the additional mile – whether or not its by creating and speaking up their good ideas and recommendations, helping their fellow coworkers when wanted, or embracing new initiatives or insurance policies regardless of private inconvenience – are essential in as we speak’s trendy enterprise setting, because the pursuit of innovation and development has turn out to be more and more aggressive and elusive.

However such employee behaviors can even include a darkish aspect. A rising body of research means that staff who commit extra effort past their required job duties may additionally be partaking in poisonous or damaging work behavior, comparable to coming to work late, withholding wanted data from others, and even partaking in theft. This habits not solely incurs deep monetary prices on organizations however when left unchecked, can unfold to different members within the office.

Associated: 3 Quick Strategies for Dealing With Toxic People

A number of explanations have been provided as to why good company residents can be so poisonous. A few of these embody emotions of strain to do greater than their formal job duties require, a robust sense of entitlement for having gone the additional mile, or a basic lack of reference to others at work. Regardless of the purpose, it’s necessary to make sure the worker behaviors you’re searching for aren’t costing you afterward. To keep away from such pitfalls, think about the next:

1. Rethink a carrot-and-stick strategy to rewarding good habits

Generally, staff go above and past the decision of obligation out of an intrinsic need to assist the group succeed. Maybe their drive to do greater than what is anticipated of them is an expression of their innate tendencies (e.g., conscientiousness) or pushed by a robust connection to the group or the folks inside it. Whereas preferrred, cultivating a workforce of intrinsically motivated staff isn’t any simple job because it requires a coordinated effort throughout all organizational capabilities, from choice and recruitment to leadership development and worker compensation. Consequently, managers typically search for different methods to encourage their staff to place forth extra effort, comparable to utilizing rewards or punishment and even making a aggressive setting that pushes staff to try to outshine their colleagues. However the issue with this latter strategy is that when staff really feel compelled to do extra for the group than is warranted, they’ll really feel licensed to subsequently give attention to their very own wants in ways in which harm their group and fellow coworkers. Because of this whereas tempting staff with a sweeter carrot or threatening them with a sharper stick would possibly result in some fascinating behaviors, such an strategy could possibly be costing you by rising staff’ willingness to interact in damaging and counterproductive work habits afterward.

Associated: How to Keep Toxic Negativity from Infecting Your Team

2. Make staff’ social picture a salient facet of the setting

Analysis means that when staff care about their popularity, they could be much less prone to have interaction in behaviors that may harm their social picture, even when they really feel licensed to take action after partaking in a praiseworthy act. One study, for instance, means that whereas inventive staff are prone to really feel emboldened to interrupt office norms which might make them extra inclined to cyberloaf, present as much as work late, or have interaction in different dangerous behaviors, their needs to protect how they’re seen by these round them might assist cut back their willingness to interact in such deviant acts. How are you going to encourage staff to care about their social picture? A method is to publicly acknowledge and showcase their good habits. Attaining a constructive social picture is usually extremely fascinating. It may improve our social status and recognition at work, and it performs a key position in sustaining constructive shallowness. After we are conscious that we’re seen positively by these round us, we search to keep up these impressions and subsequently are typically extra cautious about how we behave and current ourselves. Because of this when you’re seeking to curb unhealthy habits from these staff who go the additional mile, a superb place to begin is by highlighting fascinating habits with a purpose to sensitize staff to the image-related prices of partaking in dangerous behaviors afterward.

3. Assist staff really feel linked to the group

One ultimate means you may mitigate among the damaging behaviors described above is by nurturing staff’ sense of belonging to their group and its members. Based on research, when staff outline themselves in relation to their coworkers or the group as an entire, they’re much less prone to really feel compelled to focus narrowly on their very own pursuits, even after they’ve gone above and past of their work. Research on social identity means that after we really feel valued by others, we’re prone to incorporate these people into our sense of self and consequently act in ways in which convey our solidarity with them. Likewise, when staff start to see their group as an necessary and central facet of who they’re, they’re prone to put forth extra effort to assist the group not as a result of they must, however as a result of they genuinely need to. When such motivation to present again to the group is current, there’s much less incentive or purpose to really feel the necessity to “take again” extra afterward. Though cultivating such a collective identity amongst your staff requires appreciable effort, a superb place to begin is to make sure your staff really feel included and assist them acknowledge that their wants, objectives, and values are aligned with that of the group.