How to Handle the
Disgruntled Employee Out to Sabotage Your Business
Anca Bradley
Employees are the beating heart of a company. Business
owners who employ a dedicated
staff know that they couldn’t operate without them
-- even if computers are quickly replacing
much of the workforce. And these days, it’s even harder
to hold onto quality employees.
Job hopping is the new norm among many millennial
workers.
The median number of years a person stays with his or her
current employer is 4.6 years –
- a far cry from the era of decades-long loyalty to
a single company.
To combat this practice, it has become more popular for
companies to offer huge perks,
and there is even backlash if a company is reported to be
too hard on its employees.
Case in point: the New York Times article
exposing the purported treatment
of Amazon employees.
Types of sabotage
-- and how to combat it
Over half of all Americans are not satisfied with their
job. Some employees are so unsatisfied
with their jobs that they become disgruntled, and that
can lead to a certain type of
employee sabotage. Employees that are angry with
management
or procedures can begin to slack in their efforts,
resulting in sub-par service to customers.
They can also intentionally disrupt the technology the
company uses.
Other employees become saboteurs as spies for other
companies;
they have been head hunted by a competitor and are
gathering information
for that company’s benefit. This can be in violation of
an employee’s contract,
of course, but weeding out who has leaked what can be difficult.
Regardless of the type of employee saboteur,
some of the most damaging sabotage comes from employees.
1. Badmouthing the
company online:
According to a study from Weber Shandwick, about a third
of executives know
or admit to knowing of a fellow employee who badmouthed
his or her company online.
This type of sabotage is sometimes unintentional, as
social media has made it all too easy
for company employees to broadcast their opinions.
However, some of it is intentional:
Employees sometimes film themselves behaving badly at
work, much of which takes place
at fast food restaurants where the average employee age
is low. These videos often feature employees tampering with food, which
severely hurts a brand’s image.
With social media playing so big a part in our everyday
lives, many companies use tools
to monitor their reputation and examine search results,
such as Google Alerts
or the Fruition Online Reputation Manager.
In addition, many have instituted social media policies
to prevent their employees
from tarnishing the brand’s reputation. Social media
policies must not violate
the National Labor Relations Act but can include
guidelines for appropriate online behavior
as a representative of the company. An employee that has
violated the social media policy
may be reprimanded, and a meeting should be
scheduled to talk in person.
The employee may need to attend a workshop on the social
media policy
to ensure he or she understands what is appropriate and
what is not.
For video footage, however, employees must often be
terminated.
2. Tampering with
the system:
In 1996, newly-fired Omega Engineering Corp. employee
Timothy Lloyd set up a digital bomb
that deleted all of the company’s programs and cost the
company $10 million in sales
and contracts. It is one of many horror stories about
resentful IT employees
that wreak havoc on computer systems as punishment.
According to Insider Threat: Protecting the
Enterprise from Sabotage, Spying and Theft,
three problems existed in the case of Lloyd:
1) He was the only person in charge of maintaining backup
information for the programs;
2) Lloyd refused to train new employees;
and 3) The out-processing of Lloyd was improperly
handled.
Prevent this from occurring by implementing the
two-person rule,
in which no one person is responsible for crucial
software, hardware or other systems.
Also, deal with angry employees immediately and
provide a thorough out-processing
in which all access to systems is revoked.
3. Theft of
intellectual property:
A Symantec study in 2013 showed that half of employees
who left or lost their jobs that year
kept confidential corporate data. Furthermore, 40 percent
planned to use it in their new job.
It’s a disturbing figure, and one that is perhaps not
entirely unavoidable,
as employees learn their company’s procedures and carry
it over to their next position.
Enforce non-disclosure agreements and / or
non-compete clauses in employee contracts,
and restrict access to sensitive data to only those
employees who need it.
If a new hire offers information about another company,
resist the temptation.
It sets a bad example and sets forth a corporate culture
of hypocrisy.
The best
prevention
It’s important to first hire the right people.
This can involve a lengthier hiring process, but a
company with employees that are happy
and dedicated to their jobs is less likely to become a
breeding ground for saboteurs.
Disgruntled employees should be dealt with immediately.
If they must be let go, proper exit interviews are a
must.
However, the best defence against sabotage is to first
prevent it.
Treat your employees well, and create a corporate culture
in which every voice counts.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250920
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