Why are toxic employees so hard to fire? (2024)

Every company has a variety of employees. You have the wonderkids and the workerbees, the mavericks and the mediocrities.

And then there are the toxic employees.

They are like the ugly house on an otherwise bucolic residential street, the subject of much revulsion and ridicule, but immovable and impregnable.

Toxic employees come in various forms.

The kind that most infuriate me are the wannabe Napoleons: These would be the folks who always want great power and greater responsibility, for whom affiliations are more important than achievements.

When it is time to get to the actual work, however, these folks are harder to locate than flavor in a P.F. Chang’s entree. For them, every commitment a non-binding opening bid, subject to endless revisions and revocations.

By taking on more assignments and projects, they seek to show that most potent of professional aphrodisiacs: leadership. Tragically, they then discover a headache just when the moment is right.

Or, it could be that their ambitions vastly exceed their abilities even as they are always throbbing with a barely camouflaged desire to take center-stage.

There are, of course, other entrees at the toxic table:

• the empire builders who are always eager to hire more to fill the organization chart beneath them.
• the unsolicited volunteers who derail meetings with enough tangents to fill a geometry book.
• the hot-tempered ones who offer tirades in lieu of teamwork.
• the ones with hidden agendas, who view themselves not as part of a team but as an alternative to it. While others are heads down under the hood trying to fix the car, the toxic ones jump in and drive the car off a cliff.

Oftentimes, many or all of the above toxic qualities establish residence in one employee, making them more toxic and radioactive than Chernobyl.

Whatever the case, such behavior hurts projects, destroys trust, delays delivery and creates extra work.

So, how is it that such employees persist, and even prosper, at competitive workplaces in an era of lean budgets?

I don’t think any manager likes having these folks on their team, or enjoys the regular cavalry of complaints from hardworking team-members affected by their toxic brethren (and sistren). Yet, these toxic employees survive by taking advantage of human nature, our tendency to forgive escalating slights and our aversion to confrontation even in the face of deteriorating conduct.

Absent any productive contributions, these employees employ the following tactics:

• The blame game: Any time these folks are confronted about unmet expectations, they point out things that others may be doing wrong, and end up muddying the water. They make it seem like it is partly everyone’s fault; false equivalence is a liar’s best friend. In a busy workplace, managers often don’t have the time to sort through these disputes. HR often deploys the “let’s move forward rather than looking backward” line, and again, the problem kid gets the candy.

• No one loves me: Given their negative contribution to the team, they are about as popular as Donald Trump at a Cinco De Mayo party. Somehow, they use this universal disapproval as a badge of honor, as proof that they are continually picked on and are unsupported. In so doing, they take advantage of the sympathy that is often given to those left out of the consensus dynamics of the team.

• Dashed dreams of the past: Many toxic employees did not start out that way or become that way overnight. In many cases, there was a denied promotion or some other real or perceived injustice that turned them awry. Rather than moving forward to a better day, they carry and nurture that grudge in their heart. They look for an ulterior motive everywhere, and usually succeed in finding one. As a “refund” for whatever wrong was visited upon them before, the employer looks the other way for way too long.

• Managing up: As indicated before, toxic employees often make up in presentation what they lack in productivity. They make everything look wonderful on highly sleek PowerPoint slides, and are lauded for their vision by a leadership team often disconnected from the details. “Managing up” is their salvation and while discussing ideas they will never implement, they are smoother than hot butter on toast. Alas, they can never quite answer the pivotal question: “What would you say you do here?”

• High school is here again: Bullying is a problem in the workplace, much as it is in playgrounds and the Internet. Too many managers feel that if they give the toxic employee something, that would incentivize them to mend their ways. This mix of cravenness and unearned generosity only emboldens these toxic employees.

• Reset the clock: This one is the most common and frustrating tactic used by underperforming toxic employees. Too many companies, especially in a good economy, do not want the bad morale and chatter that follows a termination. As a result, these toxic employees are often moved to a different team in hopes that they will do better. The new manager, in defiance of human nature, wants to give them a fresh chance. And so it begins again. That is why, rather than changing, things remain the same, and even though history does not repeat, it does rhyme from time to time.

According to researchthat spanned 11 global companies and 58,542 hourly workers, avoiding a toxic worker was worth about $12,500 in turnover costs, but even the top 1% of superstar employees only added about $5,300 to the bottom line. One toxic employee cancels out the value of multiple superstar employees and then some.

Still, too many managers permit this for too long.

Toxic employees, if left unpunished, may cause other employees to behave badly. This is how a lone gunman problem metastasizes into a full firing squad. Meanwhile, the morale of the rest of the team alternates between the morose and the mutinous.

Toxic employees also spook folks into being excessively conservative in adding new team members, since new applicants will be looked through the prism of those toxic employees. Too many companies would rather pass on ten promising potential employees for fear that they may end up hiring someone toxic. This could make it harder for teams to grow.

So, managers everywhere, please rip the band-aid off. End this dysfunctional marriage and get a divorce. Unlike wine, toxic employees and the bad vibes they create will not get better with time. And, they will unravel the fabric of your team, one tug at a time.