Practice Management

A toxic employee can infect the practice

Consider these eight steps to cope with those staff members who work against you.

BY SUSAN ABRAMOVITZ

In a recent interview in Forbes magazine, author and editor David DiBenedetto said, “Success is about hard work, smart thinking, and a team that’s passionate.” But what happens when the team is not passionate, or worse, working against you?

For example: Staff members may bicker or ignore one another. They gossip about other team members or you. They gather in small gaggles and whisper rumors and innuendo. When you walk by, all eyes turn your way and they stop talking. They come to work at the last minute, and leave at the stroke of 5 p.m. or earlier. Finger pointing. Low morale. Drama. Missed deadlines. Unfinished work stays unfinished day after day. The bottom line suffers.

You know something is wrong, but it’s easier to hope it will get better than to confront the problem. Re-staffing is a major headache, but is it worse than your sleepless nights, headaches, or constant upset stomach?

These traits of a toxic workplace hurt everyone, including your patients. Although you do your best to create an atmosphere of safety and trust, sometimes problem people creep into your team.

What do you do?

Developing a system to uncover and cope with an employee’s toxic attitude requires preparation and consistency. Use the following eight steps to create a foundation for this system.

• An employee manual with clear performance and behavioral policies is the first step to protect your business. It will guide you through the disciplinary, rehabilitation, or termination process as needed.

• Define expected behavior. This includes attitude, cooperation, collaboration, customer service, teamwork, and personal accountability.

• To put the toxic employee inline, start with a tough talk. Be crystal clear about the behaviors that must stop immediately and those that must start. If you are lucky, a redirect may be enough to straighten out the employee, but often this is not enough.

• Watch interactions carefully and document behaviors, attitudes and work performance over time.

• Review your recruitment and training policies to make sure that behavior is included as a major part of job performance.

• Conduct regular performance evaluations on all levels, and review behavior as part of the process. (See “Successful employee evaluations” on page 31.)

• Make everyone accountable for their behavior by assigning specific job tasks.

• If all else fails, don’t be afraid to terminate the toxic employees. The worst thing that you can do is ignore the behavior because it is contagious and will spread through your organization fast, infecting everyone in its path. If left unchecked, it can damage or even kill a practice. OP

Ms. Abramovitz is the president of Ideopia, a Cincinnati-based advertising, interactive, and brand strategy agency with a special focus on the ophthalmic and medical fields. For more information, visit ideopia.com.