Like walking around with wet socks all day, negative employee behavior can seriously irk the management and overall operations of a business. Some particularly bad employees are good at pretending to be a simple beauty mark on the face of a business—instead of a cancerous mole. The negative effects of poor employees can, if left untreated, rot the business from the inside out.

Stalls Productivity

Certain forms of negative employee behavior can stall production within the business. A business functions efficiently when each component and employee is adequately performing her duties. An employee who routinely shows up late or otherwise fails to carry her load of the work burden ends up affecting the entire organization. If the employee’s job is especially critical to the operation of the business, the effects can be serious.

Spreads a Culture of Dissent

Negative employee behavior can be contagious. If an employee is questioning the leadership in deconstructive ways or otherwise backbiting and exhibiting a poor attitude or work ethic, other employees close to that negative employee may also start exhibiting the same symptoms. Before long, a culture of dissent can pervade the organization, potentially with separate factions and loyalty lines. Ridding the company of a pervasive negative attitude can be costly and time consuming, which further hurts company resources.

Scares Away Business

Strong customer service is essential to the success of practically every business. Negative employee behavior in view of clients or customers can lead to customer complaints and an overall negative public image of the organization.

Creates Internal Turmoil

Just as negative employee behavior can affect the employees working around the bad worker, it can also impact management. Dealing with a negative employee can be tricky, and management may have varying opinions on what course of action is the most appropriate. The dispute can be compounded if the negative employee behavior is tricky to nail down to one particular employee or group of employees. This internal turmoil can affect the business’ ability to make management decisions and may steer the business in the wrong direction.