Workplaces often have "rotten apples" - individuals who contaminate the atmosphere with negative comments, dwell on failures, and avoid taking responsibility. Such a person creates a veil of negativity around them, which can lead to workplace malaise, sick leaves, and resignations. Problematic behavior can be prevented already during the recruitment phase by paying attention to the candidate's social skills, interaction abilities, and behavior in conflict situations.
The rotten apple syndrome can be addressed with strong leadership, clear operational frameworks, and shared rules based on values. The 5K thinking model (Respecting, Questioning, Listening, Encouraging, and Thanking) supports genuine encounters and low-threshold discussion. Workplaces should increase understanding of diversity and genuinely get to know colleagues. Sometimes external help may also be needed, such as workplace mediation or HR Coach support, to successfully tackle personnel challenges.
A rotten apple in the workplace is quite a common phenomenon, which is also difficult to address. It has been established that companies make recruitment errors annually, some of which are precisely those poison brewers and troublemakers. How then to tackle these recruitment errors? How to intervene in situations in workplaces where the smell of a rotten apple prevails? How to recognize this in the first place?
During the recruitment phase, more attention should be paid to the candidate's social skills, interaction skills, etc. What kind of communicator are they? What kind of social skills do they have? How do they behave in conflict situations? How are they prepared to receive criticism? And so on.
At best, during recruitment, one can delve into a person's behavior and personality, for example, through various behavioral style analyses and personality tests.
Such a person contaminates the workplace atmosphere with their negative comments, dwells on failures, and emphasizes their own omnipotence. They fundamentally approach matters with a negative tone. They certainly do not promote things positively and solution-oriented with their own behavior.
Slowly, one apple at a time, they contaminate their environment with negativity and thus create a veil of negativity around themselves. People around begin to react to the situation by feeling unwell, also experiencing things negatively, some even becoming anxious as the situation prolongs, and this leads to others' sick leaves and resignations. They sow malaise and negativity around them.
The poison brewer often does not take responsibility for their own actions; mistakes are always someone else's fault, they look for another culprit for failures or challenges. The blame lies elsewhere, either with colleagues, the employer, working conditions, equipment, or at worst, partners and customers. The fault is in poor leadership, or conditions are simply poor in their opinion.
We are different as personalities and are equipped with different strengths. We act in different varying situations in a way characteristic of our personality. If we do not understand human diversity—that we are each unique with our weaknesses and strengths as well as personality traits. And possibly even equipped with different neurodiversity, or neuroatypical characteristics. These are factors that easily create situations where conflicts arise.
Of course, it is true that malevolence and malice or actual disruptive behavior should not be accepted in any community. And these situations should be addressed firmly.
Supervisors and management are required to engage in close dialogue with employees. It is active bringing up of issues, discussing and listening, genuine presence.
In Finland, the 5K concept and operating model developed by Toisintekijät is based on genuine encounters - Respecting, Questioning, Listening, Encouraging, and Thanking. These are the basic pillars of functional interaction. Simple, but so often remain abstract and therefore require work and articulation in the workplace of what these mean specifically for us.
For a functional workplace, it is significant that observed deficiencies are addressed with a low threshold. This way, we prevent the possible spread of the rotten apple's influence to the entire apple basket.
The rotten apple syndrome can be addressed with strong leadership. In the workplace, clear frameworks must be created for operations and processes, but also for workplace behavior. Rules that rely on the company's values are good to start considering together. It is important to consider how these values link to one's own work and everyday work life? This creates a common understanding of what rules we play by. This also provides support for supervisory work and leadership and makes the entire workplace responsible for following jointly built frameworks.
But what advice when you notice that something in the workplace is off? Something or someone is sowing malaise and a negative atmosphere. Such situations are quite difficult. Intervening in them can be challenging, which is very human. But with the following steps, it is possible to minimize potential challenges and difficult situations.
The 5K thinking model - Respecting, Questioning, Listening, Encouraging, and Thanking, meaning genuine encounters in interaction. This is how we create structures for low-threshold raising of issues.
It is important that early intervention models are put in order in the workplace. Strengthen the role of supervisors and support their work. Strive to create a workplace culture where everyone has the opportunity to safely raise issues. If necessary, occupational health can be harnessed into the discussion. Also, the company's occupational safety representative can be a support and help in discussions.
Increase understanding of each other's differences. Get to know genuinely the colleagues with whom we work daily, whom we lead daily. Expand our own understanding of different personalities and ways of acting, as well as the thinking behind those actions.
Unfortunately, sometimes situations escalate to the point where the employer's means have been exhausted. The prevailing situation in the workplace will not change in any other way than by starting to consider so-called more robust measures.
How then to remove that rotten apple from the basket and how to start repairing the damages that have occurred to the other apples in the basket? This requires brave handling of issues, intervention in issues perhaps even under the law. However, it is probably clear that one person cannot be allowed to contaminate the entire workplace or, at worst, the entire company's reputation and thus weaken the entire organization's operations and results (Toxic Workers; Michael Housman, Dylan Minor, 2015).
So let's try to prevent such situations from arising. Already during the recruitment phase, consider people's diversity and differences, as well as different ways of interacting, get to know the applicant's background, ask for references, etc.
In teams, it is important to create a framework for open dialogue and getting to know each other, spending time getting to know colleagues. The time spent on this pays itself back many times over.
If necessary, you can utilize, for example, workplace mediation, which helps to solve problem points. The workplace mediator acts as a guide for discussion and as a resolver of knotty situations.
Through workplace well-being design, the company pays attention specifically to the points presented in the text above, and here an HR Coach serves as an excellent help and support in your company's HR management everyday life and in tackling personnel challenges.
Diversity is a strength and a valuable thing, but no one should be allowed to bulldoze with negativity.
Let's instead invest in the company's well-being and notice the good!
