Yikes! Problem. You’re quickly realising that you have a negative Nelly or Norman in your team. They’re getting a bit vocal and it’s going to be hard to get through the working day without hearing them criticise your decisions, bad-mouth their colleagues or start complaining about your business, policies or the culture again.

Noise cancelling headphones: check. Well wouldn’t that be nice; but as a business owner not dealing with these types of matters will turn the team toxic, before you’ve had chance to decide on your playlist.

Let’s face it, everyone will, and is entitled to, have their opinion. There is a fine line between sharing a different point of view in a way that adds value and foisting opinions on everyone in earshot. The latter does nothing but create drama and conflict, and ultimately will result in morale hitting rock bottom. Delivery and output will flat line and the team go into shut down. You can almost hear the whining engine as the whole team start to engage in a nose dive.

At some time, the law of averages strongly predicts that you will eventually be presented with this situation and have to deal with this tricky dilemma in your business. The office critic can cause considerable damage, often before you’ve even realised it. Worse still, when ‘negativity spreaders’ are not confronted, the venom can very easily spread.

So just how should you safeguard your team and your business and address these behaviours?

Hear them out. We know that all too often people start these situations when at some level they feel uncertain about change or quite simply a lack of attention. Your team can put up with and even embrace change as long as they have had chance to talk openly about it. Remember most negative people don’t know they’re negative because we tend to shy away from telling them. Sometimes you need to listen and then set the record straight.

Find out what’s driving the fear. When people feel uncertain, undervalued and unengaged they act from a place of fear and use the negativity as a disguise for their own issues worries and concerns.

Set expectations. This is one of the biggest gaps. When expectations aren’t clear, expectations aren’t met. When expectations aren’t effectively communicated employees will make up their own rules. Be clear in your own mind first what you expect of your time and then set about delivering that message in a very clear manner.

These are just a few ideas but whatever you decide to do you need to have a vested interest in turning things around as opposed to cutting the cord and terminating. Unless the behaviour is extreme, making an attempt to turn things around is something that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Remember: no-one simply woke up one morning and decided to become a bad employee. “Strength of the leader strength of the pack”.

Whether you choose to coach your “office critic” or terminate, make sure that you document your course of action and make sure that you are being consistent and fair in how you apply your approach to addressing the issue with others.

We’ve seen this very situation play out a fair few times and if you need a sounding board and some HR strategies to get things back on track we’re happy to support you.