T+D Online - human resource management with employees who are just plain evil - Brief Article - Column

T+D, April, 2002

Community

A manager member of our Web community wants to know what coaching or training is available for an employee who's "mean, snippy, and just plain evil" to both peers and customers. Any suggestions?

You don't need any special training on how to deal with a difficult person. All you have to do is become a good listener.

Help the employee remove the most distressful feelings of pain, guilt, and self-hatred by listening well, validating her painful feelings, and affirming her as a person of worth.

You'll see the change of behavior and performance immediately if the employee is grateful and committed to do her best.

With regards to the manager, my advice is to work with what you can and let go of what you can't.

Nelson

Regardless of prior inaction [by the manager], this person's behavior is having a negative impact at work and has to be addressed face-to-face in a setting designed to inform and generate a positive change. There's some good work out there on emotional intelligence in the workplace. You may want to research the topic.

This will be painful for both [the manager and the employee], but this is far from a training issue for the employee, more like one for the manager.

Ron

There's very little chance a training department can train a person to be less "mean" if the manager can't coach him out of it.

How about sending the manager to a program where he or she has the following objectives: How to be decisive, how to be assertive, how to coach, and how to fire a person who is "evil" to both peers and customers?

How about getting rid of the manager?

No name given

T D Online is compiled by associate editor William Powell; wpowell@astd.org. Join the discussion by visiting ASTD's Learning Communities at www.astd. org.