A toxic employee is a detriment to anyone’s business or team. However, they are sometimes difficult to identify. A toxic employee may even be seen as doing some good work, but behind the scenes, they are driving employees away or causing productivity to suffer. If you’re concerned that some of your employees may be toxic for your business, here are some of the things to look out for.

Manipulator

Toxic employees are, sometimes, master manipulators. Sometimes they are able to get away with things for which every other employee would be held responsible. Manipulators have to ability to shift responsibilities onto other employees, take credit where none is due, and avoid punishments. Check to ensure none of your team members exhibits these traits.

Corner-Cutter

Toxic employees sometimes have the tendency to cut important corners. This can wreak havoc on your business if the devil is in the details. Do they skimp on materials? Skip protocols in order to get a job done quicker? Are they ambivalent to safety rules? This is a potential recipe for disaster.

Busy-Body

This ties in with our point about manipulative employees; however, there is more to a busy-body than meets the eye. A busy-body knows too much about too many people. They are able to take personal situations in their co-workers’ lives and use them to their advantage. Sometimes, a busy-body may use these situations as blackmail to get what they want. A busy-body is, also, often a source of friction among employees by creating drama or staring arguments out of thin air. Spot a busy-body employee by taking notice to workplace arguments: who starts them?

Complainer

Nobody likes a complainer, and that’s especially the case at work. A complainer won’t simply do their work without getting a word in. Is there an extra workload that needs to be dealt with? Complainers will not only do their work begrudgingly, but they will also drag other employees down to their level. This lowers the overall effectiveness of the team and could create a lazy working environment.