Toxic Employees Do Not Deserve to be Brand Ambassadors
27 October 2023
Lead Beyond Performance.
Find yourself making excuses for why you keep an employee who's obviously causing trouble within your company?
“But he is my best tech…”
“But she is great with customers…”
It doesn’t matter how "great" an employee is, if they are undermining the brand through actions, statements, gossiping, etc. If they're damaging the Brand, they are not great… they are not even good.
The bottom line is toxic employees do not DESERVE to be Brand ambassadors!
How do you combat this?
- Have a Brand worth representing.
- Cultivate it through INTENTIONAL messaging. Not only through a beautiful logo and marketing to external customers, but also through Mission & Vision statements, benefits, and company policies targeting INTERNAL customers (your employees).
- Most importantly, STAND BY your Brand and hold those who threaten it accountable for their actions! You get what you tolerate, not just from the person you are making excuses for, but from everyone else who sees that their behavior is acceptable.
- Remove emotional bias whenever possible. Employers almost universally tolerate unacceptable behavior for one major reason: FEAR! Fear of conflict, fear of "harming" the employee through accountability, fear of losing revenue.
H.R. Guy Advice: Focus your team’s attention on two overarching goals.
First, “Represent the Brand in a positive manner.” And second, “Provide solutions to the customer.”
ANY action or decision that interferes with the team from achieving one of these two goals MUST be dealt with immediately.
No, this does not mean you have to fire everyone that steps out of line or goes off script. ACCOUNTABILITY includes a range of tools to help guide your team to be more effective Brand ambassadors. But you have to acknowledge when your guidance is not making a big enough difference to protect the Brand, and be willing to cut the cord.
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