Disruptive employees
December 7, 2010
When employees disrupt the workplace, the operations of the business can be seriously affected.
Employees who behave in a disruptive manner might do so for a variety of reasons including:
- Abuse of alcohol or other substances;
- Incompetence; that is, while the employee is not intentionally disruptive, his inability to perform the tasks assigned to him properly disrupts the flow of work in the workplace;
- Resentment; for example, employees may resent receiving a low or zero pay increase, or being overlooked for a promotion or a special responsibility;
- Unwillingness to work to the required standard.
Disruptive behaviour at the workplace can be seriously damaging to the effectiveness of business operations and can even result in losses for the employer.
It is, therefore, most important that the employer should act swiftly and firmly yet within the law in order to minimise the damage and send a strong message that such behaviour will not be tolerated.
Employers are advised, when faced with disruptive employees, to:
- Avoid losing their tempers;
- Use their Industrial Relations Advisor to help;
- Carefully and thoroughly investigate the cause of the problematic behaviour;
- Arrive objectively and unemotionally at the root cause of the problem;
- Decide upon a legally compliant, practical and effective course of action appropriate to the particular type of disruption and to its specific cause.
Such action may widely dependant on the circumstances, but would include counselling, training, referral for professional assessment, warnings or other disciplinary action.
Should you have a disruptive employee who is causing you grief please contact Jacques Franken.
