Don't let a bad employee hold your business hostage

Employees are the lifeblood of your organization and so critical to your success. However, circumstances and personality can sometimes turn a good employee into a monster.

I believe this transformation happens when the employee is not managed well and is given free rein of an organization. With this freedom and perceived invincibility, they can easily hold the company hostage.

In one case where I saw this happen, a programmer who demanded more money – or else – brought down the company’s website and refused to restore it until he received the salary increase he wanted, plus a bonus.

Obviously, the firm could not go along with this blackmail. They knew that agreeing to his demands one time would mean allowing themselves to be continually held hostage by him. They really had only one option: to let him go. They would then proceed with a legal case against him and hire another firm to either rebuild their website or figure out a way to bring the old site back to full operation.

In another situation, the accountant of a relatively small firm kept all kinds of vital information to himself so he would be the only one who knew what shape the books were really in. By doing so, he was able to convince everyone in the business that he alone held the key to their financial situation, so everyone needed to listen to what he said.

The accountant continued this reign of terror until the owner finally woke up and demanded that things be done differently. With this, the accountant left the firm.

After the dust settled, the owner commented how wonderful it was not having this employee working in his business. He learned that an employee in a position like this could hold the company hostage if the proper balance did not exist.

For a final example, a manufacturing business had one manager who had been there for more than 20 years. He started as a worker, then got promoted and had been a manager for more than five years. Because of his tenure and position, he tended to take advantage of his implicit power and often refused to do certain things his bosses asked him to because he did not like doing them.

Eventually, the owners hired a new manager the tenured manager did not like, and he did everything he could to get rid of him. The situation came to its breaking point when the tenured manager told the CEO he either had to get rid of the new manager or he would quit.

Because of his tenure, this manager thought he could hold the company hostage, but his demands backfired. The CEO told him to quit because he knew a person with this mentality would not be a good team player.

As it turned out, after the tenured manager left, the morale of the organization improved considerably. Apparently his presence had been a downer for the entire staff all along.

Now go out and make sure you do not have employees who are holding your company hostage. One way to do this is to ask yourself how your firm would be affected if any given employee left. In cases where the loss would be tough to recover from, you need to have practices in place that make certain they cannot hold your company hostage. Cross-training programs are the best way to do this because they ensure there is always someone else who can do any employee’s work.

You can do this!

Dr. Osteryoung has directly has assisted over 3,000 firms. He is the Jim Moran Professor of Entrepreneurship (Emeritus) and Professor of Finance (Emeritus) at Florida State University. He was the founding Executive Director of The Jim Moran Institute and served in that position from 1995 through 2008. His newest book co-authored with Tim O'Brien, "If You Have Employees, You Really Need This Book," is a bestseller on Amazon.com. He can be reached by e-mail at jerry.osteryoung@gmail.com.

Tags: Florida Small Business