A Harvard Business School study of more than 50,000 employees found the true cost of having a toxic employee among your team. We’ve all had the experience of tolerating a toxic employee at one
point or another and wondered “How do they have a job?”. While their negative impact may be noticeable to those around them, an employer looking at the numbers may have a tough time finding
this bad apple’s true cost.
Well, now we have the numbers.
The aforementioned study proves that having one toxic employee on your team is much worse than having a superstar performer on your team. A ‘superstar’ team member, someone who ranks in the top 1% for performance, brings in $5,300 in cost savings while avoiding a toxic hire brings in $12,300 in cost savings.
Just look at the ripple effect one bad employee can have on coworkers:
- Over 80% lost time worrying about this employee
- Over 70% said they were now less committed to the company due to the toxic behavior
- Over 65% said their performance suffered
- Over 60% wasted time avoiding the offender
We have all have experienced this on a personal level, perhaps having to cut out friends or partners for the negative influence they’ve had on us. Studies have proved that if you have a friend that
smokes you are 61% more likely to begin smoking. We understand that who we surround ourselves with effects who we are.
And yet, employers continue to focus on hiring the best performers over avoiding negative hires. The best thing to do if this mistake has been made is to nip it in the bud before it wrecks more havoc.
When was the last time you took a step back to examine your work community?
