7 ways to handle misbehaving employees in the workplace

At one point or another in a manager’s career, there will always be hard-to-manage employees. It is a manager’s job to properly and professionally manage these people and figure out whatever is necessary to create a positive office culture. Here are some tips on how to deal with difficult employees.

1. Develop a plan. Good planning strategy device for dealing with difficult employees. It involves gathering all the information you need and planning the perfect time for confrontations and meeting location or whether HR people or key people need to be present, etc. Gather all the information carefully before taking an action.
2. Listens. While meeting with a difficult employee, maintain a positive and calm composure, listen actively, and be impartial. Avoid being critical. Have a clear understanding of what may be causing such behavior. It can also turn out that employees start acting differently once they are given the opportunity to be heard and you may spot issues within the system that need to be addressed. Don’t assume inappropriate behavior is due to negative intent. It may be that the person has some personal problems or perhaps because of confusion, fear, motivation problems, etc.
3. Provide concise behavioral comments. It is common practice to set up monthly, quarterly, or annual meetings to receive feedback on an employee’s performance and general conduct. This meeting is the best time to address behavior problems. While giving negative feedback can be difficult and uncomfortable, good managers need to know how to get their message across clearly and advise their employees specifically on what areas they need to improve or change.
4. Take care of the behavior and not the person. Anger often takes hold of us when we act unprofessional, but a good manager must be able to control emotions, focus on the problem, and not attack the person.
5. Give warnings and set consequences. The employee must be aware that there will be repercussions if they do not try to improve or change. Give verbal and written warnings. Work with HR regarding company policy regarding ongoing employee misconduct.
6. Document. It is prudent to have documentation of these misconduct by employees. Worse comes to worst, you have something to look back on if problems are not resolved and / or are irreconcilable, and you have to fire an employee. On the other hand, if the problems are fixed, you can always put your documentation aside.
7. Be brave. If the situation gets to the point where it is unavoidable to fire the employee, don’t let someone else do it. Do it properly and professionally.