You hear a lot about bad management being a problem for good employees. What you may not realize is that bad employees can have just as much impact on your good employees. And it’s not just in terms of obvious problems, like drug use, work-related injuries, and shrinkage.
Bad employees can have a major effect on your good workers.
Your good workers are, hands-down, the best resource that your company has. And yet, they’re the ones who will have to deal the most with the issues created by the bad employees.
They’ll be the ones working harder to make up for the employees who don’t care, don’t show up, and don’t follow instructions. When bad employees screw up and ignore a customer, it will be your good employees scrambling to make things right.
When good employees have to do more to cover for bad employees, it will ultimately take a toll on their morale, their positive attitudes, and their job satisfaction. And that, in turn, hurts you.
Do your good workers a favor: Hire more people just like them.
After seeing several million anonymous employee opinion surveys over the years, across the country, we have seen good employees say things like this time and again:
“Why doesn’t management do something about this guy?”
“Why is it up to us to have to do something about this all the time?”
“Would be a great place to work if we didn’t have to deal with this guy.”
Don’t let poor employees wreck the work environment you and your good employees have worked so hard to build.
How do you do that?
Assess before you hire.
Pre-employment assessments will help you identify the bad employees and identify the good ones before you make a hiring decision.
If you can avoid hiring a problematic employee, you’ll have more time to spend nurturing the good employees and cultivating the work environment you want your company to have.
Plus, you’ll reduce turnover and increase job satisfaction for the employees you already have — the ones that you want to keep on board.
Although management will ultimately be the ones dealing with a problematic employee, your good employees will have to deal with them first, and that can be detrimental to their own productivity.
The best thing you can do for your good employees is to make sure you hire more people just like them. It’s a win for your employees, for you, and most importantly, for your customers.
