What’s the organisational cost of keeping a bad employee?

Firstly, let’s define what a ‘toxic’ employee is: someone whose actions and words adversely affect their colleagues and the overall work environment.

The toxic worker can have different behaviors and characteristics. In my experience the most toxic one for your company culture is the person that delivers a lot or it’s a needed expert with critical expertise, but nobody wants to work with him/her!

This creates a paradox. Frustration builds among other team members as they question why this issue remains unaddressed, feeling disappointed by what they perceive as a lack of managerial courage.

Keeping a toxic employee has significant organisational costs:

• Cultural disruption: it creates dissonance between what you express as expectation and what you tolerate in this case.

• Employee disengagement and turnover: replacing one employee might cost you between 50-200% of annual salary. Imagine if you lose many employees!

• Still not convinced? in addition of losing key employes, you might lose customers and external partners. Eventually, keeping this toxic employee could be significant as impacting your brand!

Do not tolerate it anymore, take action!

1. Establish an improvement plan in collaboration with your HR partner, it must be detailed and structured 

2. Plan for succession now, don’t wait

3. Decide! Either the employee makes significant improvements or you replace him/her. No more status quo!  

Don’t forget that nobody is irreplaceable!

With these actions, whatever the decision, you will begin to see the positive transformation within your team and your organization.