And like any disease, a toxic employee can subtly spread counterproductive attitudes and actions to other employees. Employees who were productive but lacked the strength to overcome the negative forces become carriers of the disease, and so the toxicity spreads. Over time, the entire company can be infected.
Part of the job of senior managers is to keep the corporate vision alive. When you have toxic employees undermining operations, it’s challenging to keep your eye on long-term objectives, but the best defense against cranky workers is maintaining a positive attitude and a clear vision, and sharing that vision.
Many businesses don’t have the internal resources to handle many HR projects, even if they have an HR person on staff. Consider a recruiting project, for example, or the creation of a new employee handbook.
You want to avoid any appearance of discrimination, so it’s always a good idea to build a case against a problem employee, point out their specific performance issues, and give them a chance to change.