How to handle employees with bad attitudes

To handle employees with a bad attitudes, describe the specific behaviour you’ve observed rather than labelling their attitude, have the conversation privately, agree what needs to change, and follow up on an agreed date. When it comes to things like job stress and workplace social politics, we all have different levels of tolerance. Left unchecked, one person’s negativity can drag the whole team down. Dealing with difficult employees isn’t easy. Thankfully, there’s an art to talking to an employee about their bad attitude which, when done well, should help them change their ways. Below are six steps, with examples of what to say at each stage.

It’s fair to say many managers dislike conflict, but employee negativity can be a real drain on you, on team morale, and on productivity. So, let’s take a quick look at examples of bad attitude in an employee, and then review six steps to address it. You’ll also find common causes for bad attitude, and how you can influence these to support a change in your team member. You’ll find details on:

• How to spot an employee with a bad attitude
• Why it can be difficult to talk to them
• 6 steps to address their attitude
• Common causes of bad attitudes in employees

What does an employee with a bad attitude look like?

These aren’t people who are bad at their jobs necessarily; they’re the employees who bring negativity with them into the workplace. And highly negative employees can be more difficult to deal with when their performance is better than average. So here are some common bad attitude examples you might experience:

• Constant complaining about the business or their workload
• Being rude or dismissive of their co-workers
• Undermining and second-guessing the decisions of managers
• Spreading rumors and exacerbating social politics

While everyone can be prone to these behaviors occasionally, this isn’t about those employees offering genuine critical feedback. This is the difference between someone using formal feedback processes like an employee check-in, and those disrupting the team’s workflow by constantly complaining.

Employees should have ways to feed back negative comments so organizations can act on them. These people shouldn’t be treated like they’re causing problems just because you don’t like what you hear, and check-ins are a great mechanism to use. But these aren’t people with constructive comments. They are people who want to be heard moaning and who pull others into their negativity.

Why it’s difficult to talk to negative people

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link and, in this case, a team is only as happy as its grumpiest member. One of the trickier parts of talking to employees with bad attitudes is preventing those attitudes spreading to the rest of your team. Research shows toxic employees can seriously disrupt everyone around them:

• 80% of colleagues worry about the offending employee’s rudeness
• 78% become less committed to the organization
• 25% of co-workers on the receiving end of the toxic employee’s behaviors vent their frustrations at customers
• 63% of employees feel they must go out of their way to avoid offending a co-worker which, in turn, disrupts their own productivity

When someone is always complaining or arguing, it distracts others in their workspace. If they constantly second-guess their boss, it becomes more difficult for progressive managers to influence positive change.

And general passive negativity isn’t all you need to consider. You can’t ignore the fact that almost 30% of adults have experienced bullying in the workplace (that equates to over 76 million people in the US alone).

These are not easy people to deal with. Team members go out of their way to avoid either working with them or upsetting them. So it isn’t surprising many managers prefer not to address the issue either. But, ignoring their behavior will ruin the workplace culture you work so hard to develop.

If bad attitudes aren’t tackled, the rest of your employees will inevitably get fed up and become disengaged. At that point, you lose people to turnover or, potentially worse still, great people soak up their negative colleague’s bad habits and you have an epidemic of negativity to deal with.

So let’s look at a few steps to help you make a change.

6 steps to tackle employees with a bad attitude

Knowing how to deal with a disgruntled employee is all about tact and mitigation. You need to be careful to avoid driving them further away. You’ve got to handle the issue before their behavior starts impacting others. So, follow this how to guide to coach your employee with a bad attitude into a more positive response:

1. Discuss the issue privately
2. Manage their attitude, not their performance
3. Educate, don’t berate
4. Be specific about unacceptable behaviors
5. Understand the root cause
6. Coach your employee towards a positive attitude

1. Discuss the issue privately with the employee

For people on the receiving end of extreme negativity, it might be satisfying to take the offending individual down a peg. But don’t be tempted. Calling someone out is embarrassing, and likely to just make them dig their heels in.

Instead, have a private meeting where you can discuss the situation calmly and professionally. To figure out how to address an employee with a bad attitude, you first need to figure out where it’s coming from.

What to say when you ask for the meeting:
“Do you have 20 minutes tomorrow? I’d like to talk through something I’ve noticed in team meetings. Nothing formal — I just want to understand your side of it.”

What to say to open the conversation:
“Thanks for making time. I want to raise something specific. In Tuesday’s planning meeting and again on Thursday, you spoke over Priya twice while she was presenting. I want to understand what’s happening, because it’s affecting how the meeting runs.”

2. This is about addressing a bad attitude, not poor employee performance

These conversations can be awkward, and employees may feel attacked. Be clear this isn’t about the quality of their work. In fact, referencing their previous accomplishments may prevent high-performing employees using their status as a shield against criticism. Focus on their behavior instead.

What to say if they push back with “but my results are fine”:
“You’re right — your output isn’t the issue, and I’m not questioning it. Your delivery this quarter has been strong. What I’m raising is separate: how the team experiences working with you. Both matter, and only one of them is a problem right now.”

Avoid: “Your attitude is affecting your performance.” If their performance is genuinely fine, this isn’t true, and they’ll dismiss everything you say next.

3. Educate, don’t berate

If you want your employee to listen to what you have to say, don’t tell them off for their negativity. Rather, this conversation is about helping them see the consequences of their behavior. It requires a certain amount of emotional intelligence from both of you, and you want them to recognize it’s their attitude which needs to change.

What to say to explain impact:
“When a presentation gets interrupted, two things happen. The person presenting stops volunteering to present. And the rest of the room stops asking questions because they’re not sure they’ll get to finish. I don’t think either of those is what you intended — but that’s the effect.”

Avoid: “You’re being disrespectful.” That’s a verdict on their character. Describe the effect instead, and let them draw the conclusion.

4. Be specific about what is and isn’t acceptable

If you make a general assertion about someone’s personality, it’s easy for them to shrug it off. But, if you share examples of an employee’s bad attitude, it’s much harder to deny. When you’re having a conversation about bad attitudes, identify situations where you’ve observed the problematic behavior and illustrate what the employee can do differently.

What to say:
“Here’s what I need going forward: let people finish before you respond, and if you disagree, raise it as a question rather than a correction. Challenging the idea is fine — I want that. Cutting across the person isn’t.”

What to say if they ask what happens otherwise:
“If it keeps happening, we’d need to have a more formal conversation about it. I’d much rather we sort it here.”

5. Identify the root cause of the problem

Most employees you talk to with an attitude problem have a reason for being like that. While you shouldn’t pry into their personal lives, it’s worth exploring some of the common causes of a negative attitude. After all, you might be able to help them. They may be struggling with work/life balance, for example, or they could even be experiencing bullying from someone in the organization.

What to ask:
“Is something making this harder than it needs to be right now?”
“Do you feel like you’re carrying more than your share of this project?”
“Is there anything about how the team works that’s frustrating you?”

What to say when they tell you:
“That’s useful, thank you. I didn’t know that. Let me take the workload point away and come back to you on it — that’s on me, not you.”

6. Coach your employee away from a bad attitude and towards a positive one

By the end of the conversation, you and your employee need a shared understanding about how you’ll proceed. You should agree what they will do differently, as well as any steps you’ll take to address the root cause of their negativity. The aim is to move everyone towards a more positive experience. Identifying areas where you may need to improve or take action can build trust and encourage them they’ll be supported to make a change.

What to say to close the conversation:
“So to summarise: you’ll hold your comments until people finish, and I’ll look at how the project work is split. Let’s check in on both in two weeks — I’ll put 15 minutes in the diary for the 12th.”

What to say two weeks later, if it’s improved:
“I wanted to say I’ve noticed the change in meetings, and so has the team. Thank you for taking it seriously.”

Don’t say	Say instead
“You have a bad attitude.”	“On Tuesday you interrupted Priya twice during her update.”
“Everyone’s complaining about you.”	“I’ve had two people raise this with me directly.”
“You need to be more positive.”	“I need you to raise disagreements as questions, not corrections.”
“This is just how you are.”	“This is a specific behaviour, and it’s changeable.”
“Sort your attitude out.”	“Here’s what I need to see different, and here’s when we’ll review it.”

Common causes of an employee’s bad attitude

There’s no magic formula when it comes to talking to employees with a negative attitude. Yet understanding some of the common reasons it might happen can give you a start point for the conversation.

Obviously, the only way to truly know what’s happening is to speak to the individual. But it can be helpful to reflect on recent comments and reactions in your preparation as you might identify possible causes of stress.

Poor wellbeing

The sheer uncertainty of the last few years means, wellbeing is now more important than ever. Whether it’s physical, mental, or otherwise, problems with wellbeing can devastate once highly promising employees and cause them to burn out. Consider whether you’ve been doing your duty of care to help support their wellbeing. And look at ways to boost employee resilience against job stress.

Low engagement leads to poor employee attitudes

Engagement isn’t a switch; it’s a scale. Difficult employees might simply lack engagement and be bored in their roles. As a result, even your most talented people can switch off and become actively disengaged, resulting in a bad attitude at work. At its worst, extreme disengagement can move them to dislike the business, and oppose its goals. So, look for signs your team members motivation has shifted and understand what’s missing for them right now.

Conflict with co-workers

Try as they might, some people just don’t get along. Discussing employee attitude gets especially tricky when personal disagreements are the cause. You need to sort through who did what and the impact of those actions, while seeking a resolution which is fair to everyone involved. You should also recognize you may not always be best placed to address this conversation, so seek additional support from your manager or HR team if needed.

Lack of recognition

Employees get fed up if their accomplishments are never recognized and they don’t feel valued. Ensure you take time as a manager to recognize what your team’s doing right and reward them fairly. Give them a platform to recognize each other and celebrate success, because you need manager and peer to keep morale high.

Being underpaid for their role

Changing companies often leads to a bigger jump in salary and benefits than staying with the same employer. In fact, “half of workers who changed jobs saw their pay increase nearly 10%. The median worker who stayed put saw an inflation-adjusted loss of almost 2%.” As a result, people who’ve been with you for a while get frustrated. But not everyone wants more money, so identify what drives your employee and see whether you can help bridge the gap.

Workload can cause a bad attitude

Employees are constantly expected to take on more responsibilities, without the bump in pay. Unrealistic demands and not-so-discretionary effort goes unchecked in most companies. Consequently, you get team members who feel overwhelmed, under-appreciated and burnt out. No wonder they have a poor attitude! So take a step back and think about what you’ve been asking of them lately – could that explain a sudden spike in poor behavior?

Seeing themselves as carrying the team

Some people have an inflated sense of self. Coaching employees with a negative attitude gets frustrating when they’re convinced they’re your most valued person (MVP). You’ll find yourself deal with them talking down to their teammates, potentially badmouthing them. And, possibly not doing what they need to be either. Keep them on track by recognizing their strengths and openly talking about those of others too.

Bad attitudes in employees rarely solve themselves

When you have an employee with a bad attitude, the worst thing you can do is ignore it. Many people don’t recognize what they’re doing until it’s too late, so tackle the issue early. It might feel uncomfortable, but it will be far better than the impact of letting it fester for any length of time.