You can spend years building a company culture that includes hard work, rewards, flexibility, and fun company and team building events, but unfortunately, one bad attitude can bring down everything you have worked so hard to for.  One bad attitude has a trickle-down effect for your team, and decreases productivity, creates unhappy co-workers, and decreases employee engagement. This directly affects how you service your customers. 

How do you deal with an employee with a bad attitude? You know, that person who complains when a task is given to them or spends too much time complaining about other employees instead of worrying about their own tasks. Sometimes it’s an employee with a great work ethic but they have a bad attitude towards their coworkers.

One of the most important steps is to recognize your team has a bad attitude within it. To ignore the problem causes festering, infection, and the collapse of a solid team and culture.

• Identify the problem: Find out who is causing and who is being affected by the problem. Address the issue quickly so it does not continue to drag on and alienate strong members of your team.
• Have a conversation with the employee: Attempt to identify the underlying issues. Find out the cause of a negative attitude. Can this issue be resolved? Maybe it is a temporary issue or maybe it is a personality trait.
• Set your expectations: Review your company culture expectations with the employee. Talk about how you can move forward.
• “Attitude training”: Our organization read Jeffrey Gitomer’s “The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude”. Read it or something similar chapter by chapter and have open discussions about attitude company-wide.
• Track and Document repeat issues if needed: And ultimately, either get the attitude on the right track or have a conversation about if your team and workplace is a good fit.

The more you talk about and exemplify a positive attitude in your business, the more positive attitudes are ingrained into your company culture.  Culture is not built overnight; it starts with the people up top. When you establish a culture where positive attitudes are expected, it will make your employees happier and more productive and in return, your business will thrive and your customer base will feel it.