11 of March, 2025

Toxic employees negatively impact the overall performance within the company, generate conflicts, and create a bad atmosphere among the rest of the workers.

Although they may go unnoticed in the first contact with colleagues, over time they show their bad attitude and generate conflicts among workers.

The toxic employee presents a certain profile very defined in human resources management. Taking the most convenient actions will serve to neutralize the problematic employee and improve the atmosphere.

What toxic employees are

Toxic employees are people who act by spreading bad habits. They instigate discussions and confrontations and drain the energy of everyone they relate to within the company.

With their behavior, although sometimes there is no ill intention, they lower performance and productivity. All this leads to a bad working environment by generating conflicts among team members or with the rest of the workers.

In the most extreme cases, they can even cause diseases in their colleagues due to work stress.

Some studies on toxic workers clearly reveal that toxicity within an organization leads to a decrease in commitment and lower employee performance.

In response to this situation, managers and HR managers must pay attention to working environments. As well as fostering positive and participatory work climates with equity. Only in this way will we avoid internal struggles and personal battles and stimulate job satisfaction.

How to recognize toxic workers

Living in the company with different types of people makes us feel more or less comfortable in our job. Having a toxic colleague nearby means enduring situations of attacks, criticism, disqualification, and even recurrent aggression or cases of mobbing.

From the HR area, employees must be educated to recognize if there is a toxic colleague at work.

Behaviors to highlight

Attacks one or several colleagues. The goal of the toxic employee is to harm one or more colleagues in their honor, dignity, or reputation.
Disqualifies his colleagues. Their high self-esteem makes them intolerable to people different from their character. They disqualify the colleague personally and professionally with the aim of causing harm.
Shows aggression. In their dealings with colleagues through hurtful and harsh expressions, or with heavy and humorless jokes. Attempts to provoke or attack and create a bad working environment.
Engages in mobbing. It recurrently shows extreme psychological violence in order to make the victim leave their job.
Is manipulative. With their behavior, they seek to generate or provoke conflicts to contaminate the environment. For this, they use criticisms, constant complaints, trigger rumors, lies, etc.
Is incompetent. They tend to be a worker who does not meet their tasks due to their own incompetence. This affects their colleagues who take over their functions and have a greater workload.
Takes an arrogant attitude. They are identified by the superiority with which they behave and the egocentrism they show. They make it clear that their work in the company is more important than the rest.
Is a declared anti-boss. Sometimes, the bad attitude and poor behavior are focused on their superiors, showing hostility towards them.

In this regard, close collaboration between team management and human resources management is key. Having a HR software.

Toxic employees: identifying characteristics

The toxic worker is a barrier to the development of the company and has the ability to destroy the human and production fabric of an organization.

The characteristics that stand out in a toxic employee profile according to experts in Human Resources management:

Narcissistic. Feel superior, lack empathy, and manipulate others to get what they want, even though they label themselves as humble. To prevent a team from reaching its full potential.
Saboteur. The toxic worker is “the wolf in sheep’s clothing”. They claim to be the best friend and colleague, and all they try is to overshadow the task and stand out above the entire staff.
Their goal is to sabotage the success of others. With this goal in mind, they do not hesitate to criticize the character and work of colleagues, try to be the center of attention by imposing themselves and delay the task. They also typically try to spread rumors and gossip to harm others.
Bully. Their behavior is based on intimidating, excluding, and humiliating. They make unpleasant comments, they disseminate misinformation or uncontrasted information, shout when addressing others.
Negative. A toxic employee brings out all the negatives. They constantly complain about the workplace, how work is focused, the people they work with, and they do not collaborate at all for the common good.

They also characterize themselves by not providing colleagues with the tools and information they need to perform their tasks.

At the same time, they carry out management tasks and personal tasks during working hours, forge documents and commit crimes, steal office material, and even for personal use they use company cards.

Have you found yourself in this situation? Keep reading and we will show you how to neutralize toxic employees in the organization.

What to do with a toxic employee

In order to avoid the negative consequences of having toxic employees, the company proceeds with trial hires (usually 6 months).
The purpose of this is to terminate the contract once the period is completed and not to pay any kind of compensation to the new worker.

Also, carrying out rotation of personnel to try to find the best task and function for each employee, or carrying out regular assessments and surveys to help identify toxic employees.

It is common for at first they appear to be the most productive employees and manage to deceive. The collaboration of the staff and the attentive gaze of the managers are essential to be able to point out the toxic worker that will eventually create crisis situations in the medium and long term.

When the above fails, you should try to give a chance for them to reconsider and improve their behavior. Regular meetings may serve with a clear and natural dialogue.

They are used to correctly analyze and evaluate the toxic employee and to be able to make the appropriate decision. If even then the bad situation in the company does not improve, firing is the most suitable.

How to manage toxic employees?

The best leaders are able to trust their instincts, but they also know how to rely on other sources of information. If you have doubts about an employee, do not be afraid to ask for help.

Even if you’re not sure if someone is toxic or not, it’s always good practice to be wary of anyone who makes you feel uncomfortable. If something doesn’t feel right at work, take the necessary time to find out why.

As a manager, it’s important not only to know when to intervene and how to manage toxic people, but also that your team trusts you enough to do so.

Behavior of toxic employees

Toxic behavior does not always manifest as major explosions. They’re more likely to be small infringements that accumulate over time, which is why it’s valuable to document them.

You’ll need this information if you ever decide to take disciplinary action against an employee for their toxic behavior.

But even if you never have to use what you’ve documented, there are other reasons to keep a record.

Think about it: if an employee has been acting toxic for years and nobody has ever mentioned it (to them or to anyone), that means it was probably an accepted part of your culture.

Once something is accepted as normal, it can be hard for people to see anything wrong with it. That’s why documenting toxic behaviors can help reinforce company values.

Professional with over 20 years of extensive experience in various areas of Human Resources (Recruitment, Training, Occupational Risk Prevention, and Personnel Management). Experience in the Management Department: Broad understanding of the company and HR.

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cristinamartin

HR Content Specialist

How to recognize toxic employees