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Target the troublemaker

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent, 8/28/2005

GLOBE ILLUSTRATION/ANTHONY SCHULTZ

Everyone knows someone at work who rarely gets down to business because he is always complaining, missing assignments, and getting into squabbles with bosses and co-workers. Call him The Difficult Employee.

The DE is at the center of a huge, continuing problem that human resources managers are loath to discuss publicly, because of company-image considerations.

During the freewheeling dot-com boom of the 1990s, start-up companies often accommodated over-the-top, brash employees who insisted on getting their own way. But today, companies that are struggling to make do with fewer workers in a still-sputtering economy can ill afford to employ distracting or unproductive malcontents, say consultants and coaches who work with corporations on personnel matters.

Too often, they suggest, the difficult-employee issue is swept under the rug. Or an individual who is causing problems is transferred from one manager to another. In some cases, the worker is even promoted, in hopes that he or she will turn over a new leaf.

"There is a tendency, and this is a big mistake, for HR people and line managers to let these problems go on and on," said Terry Del Percio, principal of The Work Strategies Co. of Beverly.

"Part of the problem is that many people are not adequately trained to manage others," said Renee Gilson, senior vice president and managing director-New England for Lee Hecht Harrison, a career management and leadership consulting firm. Gilson works out of the firm's Westborough office.

The best prescription, Gilson and others said, is to confront an employee as soon as unacceptable behavior or poor performance affects co-workers. The employee is then told how he is being perceived and given a self-improvement plan, with the proviso that if things don't work out, he may be out of work.

This scenario requires, above all, "a partnership between a human resources manager and the person's boss," said Thaddeus Ward, a senior consultant with Right Management Consultants who has corporate clients.

Indeed, companies are working hard to convert difficult employees to manageable employees, said Jen Jorgensen, spokeswoman for the Society for Human Resource Management, based in Alexandria, Va.

"How a company responds varies, based on the problems and the desired solutions," Jorgensen said, noting that HR professionals prefer not to go on the record with outsiders about how they're dealing with the issue.

Given the "stagnant" economy and lean staffing, companies are partially to blame for the difficult-employee phenomenon because they're overloading employees with work, said Roberta Chinsky Matuson, principal of Human Resource Solutions, which has offices in Brookline and Northampton. It's no wonder, then, that workers "are feeling tired, boxed-in, cranky," she said.

It may also be true that some companies "have less patience in handling problem employees. It's much easier to downsize and terminate them," said Bara Litman, a psychologist and vice president of client services for Sobel and Raciti, a major employee assistance program provider.

Moreover, sometimes poor job performance is due to causes outside the workplace, such as drug and alcohol abuse, marital problems, or the stress of being the caretaker for elderly parents, Litman said.

But confronting a wayward employee about the problems he's causing — for whatever the reason — often does yield positive results, two other corporate consultants said.

"The president of a small, privately held company was nasty, but for a long while he had convinced the owner that only he could deal with the marketplace," recalled William Roiter, an executive coach and a psychologist. "Finally, the owner let him go. Afterward, customers said, 'Well, it's about time."'

One of the first things to determine in assessing a problem employee is whether that individual has any "net value" to the company, said Roiter, a partner of MVP Research Group of Newton. If someone does add value, but has a behavioral problem, "then perhaps you box him in so that he can focus on what he does best," Roiter said. "At the same time, you try to make sure that he has less contact with other employees and clients."

After joining a high-tech company as vice president of sales, a retired Army general began treating his employees as troops, recalled Virginia Lord, a principal of Spherion Inc., a national outplacement-HR consulting firm headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

"Things got so bad that some members of his team sabotaged his computer," she said. "After I was called in by the company, I had to show him how others saw him. He said he hadn't known that he had these negative [personality] characteristics.

"A development plan was worked out for him, with milestones to be reached. Finally, he turned things around, getting his team to work with him. And, in the process, he enhanced his performance."

Realistically, however, "Some people will never change their ways and some companies won't change, either," in terms of addressing the difficult-employee issue, Lord said.

And, if it can be proven that the bad behavior is intentional, the employee should face dismissal "because he can no longer be trusted," Roiter said.

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