Dealing with insubordination

When an employee starts acting rude to a manager, it can be extremely hard on the company. People won't be able to stop talking about it, managers will be frustrated, and the whole workplace will suffer. Managers can do something about insubordination besides just firing the person. You can try to help them. Firing someone is always the last solution, because it is bad for both the employee and the employer.

Your company probably has some sort of disciplinary policy where an employee gets a verbal warning, then a written warning, and then gets fired. Use this when dealing with insubordinate employees.

Not every insubordinate employee is the same. Some are rude to only one person, some are rude to everyone, and some are just downright cruel. If an employee makes a rude remark or several to a manager, take the first step in your disciplinary policy. There is no need to fire someone right away just because of a remark they made. However, if it was something really bad and totally against company policy, then you might need to go to another step.

Another type of insubordination is threatening physical violence or actually going through with it. Some people have disabilities where they don't act the way everyone else does. If you have an employee like this, and they threated someone, make sure that they get help from a specialist. Just because they have a handicap doesn't mean that they won't go through with what they said. They have to be taught that what they said or did is wrong. If it continues, you will have to take the disciplinary steps to make sure no one gets hurt.

If an employee disobeys an order, it is another example of insubordination. If an employee says they can't do something or come to work on a certain day because of religious reasons then it isn't insubordination. Follow the disciplinary steps for your company. If the employee keeps disobeying orders, then you will have to fire them.

Employees can be cruel sometimes. They know that you can't just fire them for disobeying an order once, so they will test you. They will slowly start doing less and less. They will perform tasks slowly so that they don't have to do much. They might even test you more and start intimidating you. The employee will know that you are on the brink of firing him, but that you don't want to have to fire him. If an employee is intimidating you or is doing hardly any work, give them a plan to improve, and let them know that if they don't improve, to a certain point by the end of the time period, they will be let go.

If you do have to terminate an employee, you have to make sure that you do it right. Your company will have certain policies and your state will too. Make sure that you aren't doing anything wrong, or you will be in even more trouble than if you kept the insubordinate employee.

Making the decision to fire someone or not can be very difficult. However, it's to the advantage of the company to get rid of someone who isn't doing their job, is posing a threat to the customers or other employees, or who just simply won't do what he's told. An employee like this can ruin a company, so when you decide take into consideration the consequences for both sides.

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Categories: Management,

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