Meet the bad eggs
Just like anywhere else, Nigeria has its fair share of bad employees; those employees who erode the morale of others, are irritating, never take responsibility for their actions, are arrogant and ultimately, slow down the work of others.
The traits of bad employees range from them just being annoying to behaviours that completely disrupt teams and departments.
In a situation where you have already hired any of the employees we will discuss in subsequent paragraphs, do not despair as we will talk about ways to deal with such employees despite finding their way into your organisation.
Below are 9 types of bad employees in Nigeria you should steer clear of and what you should do if you find them already existing within your organisation:
1. The indecisive one
For this kind of employee, making a decision becomes a task that takes forever to accomplish.
When trying to make a decision, the indecisive one takes a dramatically long time to make up his/her mind. When he/she eventually makes a decision, he/she still revisits the decision. After that, he still revisits the decision a second time.
When his/her inability to make a decision comes by to haunt him/her in the form of a problem and finds himself/herself being held accountable for the problems his/her indecision has caused, he/she becomes resentful, unhappy and offended.
At such moments, such employees utter lines like “It was no fault of mine” or “It wasn’t me.”
What to do
It is important to set up a strict deadline and insist that any decision made at the deadline stays. Add that if no decision is made upon the expiration of the deadline, the company will fall back on a default decision.
With this employee, do not entertain other alternatives or indulge his/her penchant for revisiting decisions.
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2. The one obsessed with competition
For this employee, everything is a competition. He/she is more concerned about knowing that he/she has won as well as finding out the loser or losers as the case may be.
For the one obsessed with competition, he/she knows that his quest to win all the time is bound to hurt the emotion or psyche of colleagues but he/she is not bothered about this.
Winning for him/her is the ultimate goal and not the bigger picture of working within a team.
In several cases, this type of employee will jeopardise the interest of the organisation to fulfil his/her desire to win.
What to do
The goal, when dealing with the one obsessed with competition is to get him/her to understand that it is much better when the team wins as against when he/she wins.
One way to achieve this is to give him/her a bonus whenever he works towards helping the team achieve its goals and objectives.
3. The drama king and queen
The drama king or queen as the case may be has a penchant for all that is extremely dramatic. He/she for exaggerated reactions and ideas. They are very emotional people and a gift for blowing things out of proportion.
Dramatic people also gossip a lot. The reason for this is that most of the time, dramatic people do not have a life of their own so they focus on the lives of others, their shortcomings and any other thing that strikes their fancy.
What to do
As an employer, you must create boundaries for dramatic behaviour that the establishment will not tolerate. Let the boundaries be clearly spelt out and set the limits. If he/she insists on remaining dramatic and constituting a nuisance at meetings or official engagements, do not hesitate to ask him/her to step out.
4. The corporate iconoclast
This employee has a reputation for breaking the rules and taking constituted authorities for granted. There is a lot of negative energy around the corporate iconoclast. He is often keen on breaking the rules just to show that he can do it and get away with it.
Deadlines mean little or nothing to the corporate iconoclast. A lot of the time, he/she would take action and make decisions without fully realising the implications of his/her decision and action.
What to do
This employee, despite his/her flaws and disregard for constituted rules, can prove to be a golden asset if pointed in the right direction. For example, if this employee is made to be a customer advocate of sorts, he/she would go great lengths to ensure customers get what they want.
5. The talkative one
There are people who can sell ice to an Eskimo and then, there are those who just keep talking regardless of whether you are really listening or irritated. This employee does not really care whether what he/she is talking about is relevant to the topic being discussed or not. This employee is also not really concerned with whether what he/she is saying is the ideal thing to say or whether it is inappropriate.
On more than a few occasions, this employee will put the organisation in awkward situations at public events especially if his role requires him to interact with the company’s various publics.
What to do
At meetings and events where the company is represented, you should draw up a written agenda for every meeting. You should also insist he/she works with a limited amount of time when speaking.
6. Social media addict
There are employees who spend an unbelievable amount of time on social media. We’re not talking about employees who check their notifications and messages for a few minutes and exit.
We mean those who go as far as posting comments and stirring up conversations across social media platforms.
What happens with this employee is that his/her work suffers greatly due to the sheer amount of time spent on social media.
What to do
One thing you can do is to restrict access to the social media websites. Alternatively, if this employee’s role is within the marketing unit, you can incorporate the responsibility of community management to the employee especially if this does not
The Social (Network) Butterfly He is convinced that it’s productive for him to remain online all day “building relationships” with all your customers. In fact, he’s just adding to the day-to-day blather that’s such an integral part of the social network. How to cope: Assign him measurable goals–like a certain number of qualified sales leads that he has to create every week.
7. The one with the hot temper
This is the employee who explodes into a rage whenever he/she fails to have his way or when majority are not buying into his idea. He/she is not easy to deal with he has a habit of yelling over the phone, screaming and sometimes, even cursing.
In some cases, an apology would come from him/her later, he makes other employees nervous and unnecessarily agitated.
What to do
As an employer, this is where you put your foot down. Remind his that he isn’t the only one capable of screaming. You do not have to yell to do this. Pass the message across over a conversation.
Put a stop to his/her unprofessional behaviour and if you really have to, you should leave the meeting or room until he/she is ready to have a civil conversation.
8. The one who always procrastinates
This is the employee who never meets up with deadlines and this is because he always procrastinates. Rather than pay attention to tackling tasks as they get to his table, he postpones doing them to a later time until he ends up missing his deadlines.
He always has this laid back attitude to his work and usually has a way of getting people to cover up for him.
Organisations cannot be grown or taken to the next level with employees who have this attitude to work.
What to do
The way out of this is to micromanage such an employee. Come up with daily and weekly benchmarks for such employees. Also, remember that you must ensure that there should be consequences when the benchmarks and targets are missed.
In a situation where he/she inevitably misses a benchmark and fails to report that this was missed, there should also be consequences.
9. The one with the golden IQ
There are some employees who hold themselves high above others. Such employees are always eager to brag about their past accomplishments and how much of genius they are.
The problem begins when such employees fail to impact on any of the brand’s products and services.
What to do
Sit this employee down and make him understand how he fits into the organisation. You should then proceed to get him/her involved in ongoing projects by breaking the project into tasks and have him work with the rest of the team on these tasks.
Final word…
When you spot any of these employees at the recruitment stage, you can save yourself some headache by opting for other candidates who are not burdened with these qualities.
If, on the other hand, they are already within your organisation, then, dedicate time to correct the situation by applying the suggestions above as it applies to the employee in question.
Have you ever had to deal with an employee who falls into one or more of the categories highlighted above?
