Applicants tend to put their best foot forward until they get hired—but sometimes, that’s where it ends. While some are coachable, certain bad employee traits require more quick and stern actions, especially if these start hampering your team and business.
Things like unreliability and poor time management may take a while to notice—but other traits like rudeness and an inability to improve may not be things you should wait to change. By keeping tabs on “bad employees,” providing coaching, and providing disciplinary action when warranted, you can prevent this from impacting your workforce.
Here are a few bad employee traits to take note of, how to address them, and when to start managing that employee out.
- 1. Unreliability
- 2. Rudeness and Insubordination
- 3. Laziness/Lack of Initiative
- 4. Refuses to Take Accountability
- 5. Bad/Negative Attitude
- 6. Causes Drama and Stirs the Pot
- 7. Unengaged
- 8. Bad Time Management
- 9. Indecisive/Overly Dependent
- 10. Inability to Change
- 11. Lack of Technical Skills
- 12. Poor Communication
- Warning Signs of a Bad Employee
- Bad Employee Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Bottom Line
1. Unreliability
This covers everything from being late to meetings and missing deadlines to co-workers or managers having to recheck the bad employee’s work. Alternatively, the employee may have brilliant work and attitude one day and be horrible the next, so you never know what to expect.
Speak with the employee—coaching goes a long way here. There may be some one-off factors contributing to the unreliability, and one-off instances mean these shouldn’t repeat. You may be able to provide some advice on how to manage time, or maybe put notice to them that their in-office behavior is affecting others around them
However, if this becomes habitual, you may have to start taking a sterner stance with disciplinary actions. Just take note of the instances, and ensure that they’re well aware of the instances that they were unreliable.
If habitual unreliability is affecting your bottom line, then it may be time to manage them out. If they’re habitually late with deliverables or often late to meetings—or worse, client calls—then these are major red flags to start the separation process.
2. Rudeness and Insubordination
This characteristic of a bad employee can not only frustrate management but also hurt your company’s reputation if the employee works with customers. This bad employee talks back to management, argues with customers, is passive-aggressive—constantly making snide remarks—or finds ways to not follow instructions.
Before acting, always double-check whether the incident was actually rude or insubordinate behavior. In this instance, your HR team will go a long way to identify whether their behavior is borderline acceptable or too risky to keep. Take note of the comments and incident, and speak to the employee about it firmly but calmly.
If you determine that the incident of rudeness or insubordination was actually true, then you will have to terminate them immediately. If this involves a client even more so—as this directly impacts your bottom line.
Related: How to Terminate an Employee: Steps & Best Practices
3. Laziness/Lack of Initiative
Bad employees are often only concerned with doing the minimum to “earn” their paycheck. They refuse to take on extra tasks, even those within the scope of their job description. They aren’t interested in growth opportunities and are lackadaisical about training. They produce poor or “just barely good enough” work because they aren’t putting in the effort and are content to achieve minimum standards.
Coaching and performance improvement plans are the way to go here. There can be multiple reasons for such behavior, and this is often something a good coach or manager can take head-on and rectify. By identifying the underlying cause, you can create solutions that would motivate them to work harder.
If their laziness has cost you a client or has caused the individual’s teammates to pick up the slack, then it’s time to manage them out. Letting them stay on may lower the morale of your team, especially if they have to work twice as hard to pick up the slack.
4. Refuses to Take Accountability
Nothing is this bad employee’s fault. Either someone else dropped the ball, the instructions were confusing, or some personal issue got in the way of their doing well at work. Occasionally, these are valid reasons, but beware when you see a pattern.
Training will go a long way for this—with strict supervision from an experienced manager. Sometimes, such employees simply aren’t aware of their shortcomings, so putting them in situations that require their actual personal effort may open their eyes. An experienced manager will be able to work them through it, not only to point out where the employee went wrong but also to provide productive criticism to help them improve.
If their refusal to take accountability is already affecting their teammates, and their manager has done everything possible to coach the employee, then it’s best to manage the individual out.
5. Bad/Negative Attitude
Sometimes, a brilliant worker is not worth it if their attitude disrupts the workplace. Signs of bad employee attitude might be arrogance, constant criticism of management, disdain for teammates or customers, or lack of respect for the company’s procedures, mission, or values.
Speak with the employee sternly in a panel with your HR team. Tell the employee of all the instances of their bad attitude—with any hard evidence, where possible—and tell them how it affects the team. If put to their attention, they may be more mindful of their actions and correct their ways.
If they blow up on their team, or resort to violence, then terminate them immediately. Apart from morale issues, you risk the security of your employees and/or clients.
6. Causes Drama and Stirs the Pot
Some people enjoy the adrenaline rush of conflict. These bad employees might spread rumors, overreact to problems, exaggerate disagreements, and complain. The passive-aggressive employee might publicly criticize someone under the guise of “being helpful.” Alternatively, they may demand attention or privileges because they can’t deal with the ordinary stress of the work.
Once again, a panel with the HR team may help. Simply pointing out that they’re just causing drama will backfire, as their defense would be that they were simply trying to help. Provide some tips on how to give proper criticism or state that gossip won’t help anyone but will lower morale.
If they start spreading ill rumors or create an agitated workforce, then it’s best to start managing them out. Rumors can create violence or lawsuits—so it’s best to steer clear of those that start them. The same goes for those that goad situations into more heated situations than need be.
7. Unengaged
The opposite of drama, an unengaged employee does not care about their work or what’s going on in the office. They don’t participate in meetings or interact with co-workers or customers even when the job demands it.
This may be difficult to track. Managers should have a feel of disengaged direct reports—but if they don’t let their managers know, then it would be difficult to address the situation. This can even be problematic if the disengagement isn’t centered on one person. Sending out anonymous employee surveys can help you identify what’s affecting your workforce as a whole and provide you with more actionable data to work with.
Related: How to Create an Employee Survey to Boost Engagement & More
If the disengagement of an individual is simply because of the work, then the role may not be a good fit for them. Consider moving them to a team that they’ll feel more comfortable with—or maybe your company simply isn’t fit for them.
8. Bad Time Management
These people use work time to do personal tasks, text friends, scroll social media or watch YouTube videos, or switch-task so much they never get their work done. This bad employee trait is even worse when their time wasting affects others—like engaging co-workers in long conversations, preventing others’ work from being done too.
Sometimes, employees simply aren’t aware that they’re wasting their time. A productivity tracker may go a long way to resolve this—but you’ll have to implement it to the entire workforce, as you may be liable to discrimination if it’s just implemented to one individual. There are also a lot of training modules they can take to help with task management.
If their poor time management is chronic, and their productivity and output are suffering, then it’s time to let them go. Prolonging the inevitable may just affect their peers and cause them to lose time too.
9. Indecisive/Overly Dependent
It’s one thing to clear something with your manager, but this becomes a characteristic of a bad employee when they cannot make a decision without consulting a manager, particularly on topics where they have authority. This employee might also stall on projects until they have a complete consensus of peers. They may delay projects with changes or redos.
These individuals will need training, but first identify where the indecision is coming from. Verification is not a bad thing—but if it’s affecting output and deadlines, then it becomes a problem. They may also need more basic training, as their indecision may stem from not being certain of how certain things work.
If their indecisiveness is costing you clients and causing missed deadlines, then you’ll have to start the process of managing them out.
10. Inability to Change
Sometimes, a great candidate simply cannot adapt to the pace or demands of the workplace, despite their qualifications. You’ll see this in their stress level at work, missed tasks, and errors. This is a particularly bad quality for an employee when it also includes the inability to accept and make changes based on feedback.
Determine where the difficulty is coming from, as maybe their training was inefficient for their learning style. Shadowing a more senior member can also help them figure out where they’re going wrong and hopefully teach them some tricks that will reduce their stress at work.
Maybe their job isn’t for them, so consider moving them to a different role that they’re more capable in. However, if they’re still inefficient at their job despite the revised training and the managerial support, then it’s time for them to go.
11. Lack of Technical Skills
This is especially jarring if they were hired based on professed expertise because it shows dishonesty. However, if their attitude is good, they might overcome this problem with training.
Solid training and development is the way to go here. Determine whether your current training modules and materials are still current as well—as this may not be a skill issue, but a systematic competitiveness issue within your company. As with those having difficulty adapting to change, make sure the learning medium is apt for the worker as well.
Related: Types of Employee Training to Enhance Workforce Skills
If you’re sure that your training is working out, and the employee continues to underperform, then this is no longer an issue of lack of knowledge, but a concern of compatibility with the role. In such a case, it’s best to shift their role or manage the employee out.
12. Poor Communication
Some people simply never learned how to write concisely or speak eloquently, but there are online classes to teach these skills and tools like Grammarly that can help. This is also a good topic for mentoring.
Training tools would definitely help here, but partnering these individuals with good managers is the best option here. A good manager won’t just break these individuals out of their shell, but also ensure that their communication skills are polished. Hopefully, with a little guidance, they can communicate well enough to handle their roles.
If they don’t improve, or purposefully don’t communicate with their manager, then they won’t be able to work effectively with a team. In such a case, it would be better to let them go if they really don’t improve.
Warning Signs of a Bad Employee
Sometimes, the bad qualities of an employee are subtle enough that you may doubt yourself. Look for these warning signs (our article on 15 fireable offenses might help too).
- Customer complaints: If your employee is being called out negatively on public reviews or customer satisfaction surveys, or if you are having to apologize for their behavior, you may have a bad employee.
- Returned items: If customers are returning items created by your employee, it could indicate poor training—or a bad employee attitude or inability or unwillingness to learn the correct procedures.
- Violating company policies: This isn’t about skill. It shows disdain for you as an employer. Even worse, it can affect your company’s brand and reputation.
- Unproductive compared to their peers: If they aren’t completing tasks on time and with the same quality as their co-workers or are constantly depending on others to do their work, then they are dragging your company down.
- Co-workers have to redo their work. When their work is continually subpar, someone will end up picking up the slack, and this can happen either voluntarily or because someone was instructed to do so. If this continues, it will harm morale and, ultimately, your bottom line.
- No one in the office likes them: I don’t mean an occasional butting of heads or personality conflict. Rather, their teammates don’t trust them with assignments or avoid them because they bully, sow drama, overshare to the point of discomfort, or are inappropriate in other ways. Most people don’t want to complain about a co-worker, so you may need to watch for behavior and body language.
- Dishonesty: Nothing breaks morale like dishonesty. Outright lies count but also dishonesty has subtler forms, like blaming others for mistakes they made, taking credit for someone else’s work, or even withholding vital information.
- Public criticism of the company: If they are willing to air their grievances on social media, is it fair that they work for you?
- Frequent absences: Taking excessive time off, both in days off or long breaks, and being consistently late are red flags. Besides these, also consider “absent at the desk behaviors,” like doing personal errands on the job, running a game or show in the background, and excessive socializing.
- Refusal to change: Everyone deserves a second chance, but if you’ve counseled a bad employee and offered solutions but they don’t improve, it’s a sign for them to move on.
Bad Employee Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
A bad employee is someone whose attitude and/or behavior disrupts the workplace. They usually have a combination of a negative, lazy, or entitled attitude, poor skills, and indifference to the quality of work they put out.
Sure. Some bad employees are very charismatic and social, making them fun to be around. However, their problem areas lie in the completion and quality of work and possibly in how they keep others from completing their projects as well.
This depends on who you ask. Some authorities classify them by personality types (like the Grump) or archetypes (like The Gatekeeper). However, I like eSkill’s classifications.
- The Bad Communicator: This person can’t or won’t communicate clearly. They may ramble or withhold information—both are bad. They might also have bad timing, waiting until the last minute, or responding too quickly and sending correction after correction.
- The Contract Negotiator: This person strives to avoid work by saying it’s technically not in their job description. They might also be prone to do just the minimum required.
- The Non-Professional: These workers are unreliable, prone to break unspoken rules (as well as any professed ones they think are “stupid”), and disdain company etiquette.
- The Non-Joiner: This means more than being reluctant to take part in team projects. Non-joiners express negative attitudes and sow dissent, sometimes just to see the drama unfold. They may think of themselves as mavericks who know better than their peers or management.
A troubled employee may display some of the same behaviors as a bad employee. However, in this case, it’s a change in their behavior rather than their standard way of acting. In addition, they may show signs of depression or preoccupation. You may see physical signs as well, such as an untidy appearance, weariness, slurred speech, or confusion.
There are certain tell-tale signs that you may notice in an individual, even while they are still in the applicant stage. Things like not understanding what the job requires, insufficient skills or knowledge, arrogance in the interview (as opposed to healthy confidence), and unwillingness to compromise are immediate red flags. If they’re already onboarded, take a look at their training performance, on-the-job productivity, as well as how they relate with their peers. If they’re underperforming or are rude when they speak, then you have a bad employee on your hands.
Sometimes, bad employees make great candidates, and it’s not until after their probationary period is over that they start showing problematic behavior. It’s important to provide clear and frequent feedback and track problem issues. Best case scenario: You can fix the bad traits of an employee with attention and training; worst case: You’ll have grounds to fire them.
It’s difficult to say; most estimates play off a 2003 US Department of Labor study that estimated bad hires cost 30% of the individual’s first-year earnings. However, as a good rule of thumb, consider the cost spent hiring and training your terrible employee, plus the amount you’ll spend hiring and training a new employee, and any manhours lost from the employee’s bad behavior or subpar work.
Bottom Line
Every company has to contend with a bad employee at one time or another. Left unchecked, they can damage your company. When you learn how to recognize the qualities of a bad employee, you can get ahead of the problem, either by working with them to improve or removing them from your business before they hurt employee morale, productivity, or your company’s reputation.
