8 Ways to Identify Toxic Staff
In the exclusive world of private service, a select group of staff has risen to an elite status.
These leaders are often referred to as trusted advisors.
They are not just senior employees with top-tier salaries entrusted with most confidential matters but also hold significant power within your organization. At the same time, they can also be the source of constant staff turnover, service disruptions within your home, and the root of your unmet service expectations. They could be the ones who deem your home a Toxic Work Environment.
One might question if these influential figures are utilizing their power for the betterment of you, your family, your organization, or themselves.
Let’s determine whether you’re supporting a toxic employee:
Do they provide unsolicited and negative feedback on other staff member’s performance?
Do they give public feedback instead of during 1-on-1s?
Do they consider someone’s accomplishments and qualifications unnecessary or unimportant?
Do they claim other’s work as their own or stay silent about appropriate recognition?
Do they cancel or postpone meetings due to being “too busy with other, more important work?”
When staff ask for input, do they respond with, “You should know this,” or “Why are you asking me this?”
Do they withhold critical updates from other team members?
When confronted, do they blow up or deflect the conversation back towards the other person?
Why is it important to understand and identify toxic people inside your organization?
You won’t get the service you are paying for.
Your revolving door of entering and exiting staff will require additional resources and patience during these transitions.
Your family will continue to feel disrupted in their daily lives.
Your household staff will feel insecure and seek more secure opportunities. Or worse, they’ll stay but burn out trying to navigate endless no-win situations.
Your risk of legal action by disgruntled employees increases.
And you’ll be the last to know.
BEFORE YOU DESIGNATE your new hires as “not a good fit,”
determine if your executive team is the problem.
The Toxic Team Member will target one employee…
Who has unknowingly made them look bad or has the potential to make them look bad.
No one on your team will tell you who is toxic. Even the most honest staff will stay silent, knowing this is a no-win situation.
They need to protect their financial security.
But, if you have someone who gets fed up and reports them, this type of harassment or “Gaslighting” is usually impossible to prove and quickly becomes a “He said/She said” scenario where no one wins. Then, watch the toxic staff start an endless smear campaign. And then the payback begins.
In the end, it’s the one who reports the harassment that is labeled “not a good fit” or deemed a liability to your organization.
Remember, the stakes are high for your trusted leader, and they’ll do anything to retain their high-ranking stature.
Estate Managers are easy targets.
The best of them are quiet leaders working primarily in your back office. They surface to confirm initiatives, lead meetings, coach staff, and complete walk-throughs, then retreat into their office to make things happen. Your Estate Manager often interacts less with you, making them particularly vulnerable to inferior labeling, finger-pointing, and smear campaigns.
Being competent as an Estate Manager could be why they get targeted and fired. Their mere existence threatens to expose the missing pieces of your operations.
We know you employ staff to take HR issues off your plate; however, if you notice that your service and staffing needs fall short of your expectations, your new hires aren’t staying, and your existing staff looks burned out, it’s time to wake up and take matters into your own hands.
At some point, the homeowner must decide what is more valuable – an individual's so-called trusted relationship or your family and staff’s peace of mind.
