No boss would wish for an office packed with lazy, unmotivated, and inefficient employees. But, unfortunately, despite the strict screening and recruiting of new hires, some companies still end up having quite a few bad apples that showed great potential during interviews but perform poorly on the job.
Training and stern coaching may change an employee’s bad behavior. However, if results don’t deliver even after having these supports, the reason for contract termination for this kind of employee is clear.
By knowing the employee traits that a boss hates, you can avoid getting scorned, mocked, or even fired.
10 Employee Traits That Bosses Hates
According to a poll administered by CNNMoney.com, a lousy boss is one factor for low employee morale. But, on the other hand, what could greatly affect bosses’ morale? The answer is simple —the performance of workers. Here are the traits that might get you kicked out of your job:
Procrastination
“I’ll do this tomorrow.”
“This can wait.”
“I’ll begin in a few minutes.”
You must have heard these statements countless times. One research says that more than 20% of the population are chronic procrastinators. Perhaps, the reason behind this could be their fear of failing or just mere laziness.
If you put off doing something you could do today, you could get into trouble fulfilling your task. Bosses feel hostile toward procrastinators. Workers who usually play a waiting game end up making a rush, thoughtless decision, and presenting substandard work. Such a person is more likely to overlook deadlines and do things at the last minute.
Nearly all work requires collaboration, and if one person would procrastinate and do his job just about the deadline, the whole team will be forced to follow the same pace as he does. Procrastination doesn’t only affect one person but the entire performance of a team in the company. This probably brings annoyance to bosses.
If you often procrastinate, you better motivate yourself more to get things done on time, or you will end up hurting your career.
Dishonesty
A survey by Dr. Brad Blanton concluded that 93% out of 40,000 Americans confessed that they always lie in their workplace. The reason may be to attract customers, get away from punishments, or get something.
The result of dishonesty is not as simple as it might appear. Frequently, people think that lies only breed guilt and contempt. However, it brings so much more. Lying could affect your reputation and credibility to your boss and co-workers, to the extent that you could even lose your job.
Most bosses hold honest employees in high regard and even rewards them for it. It may be a bonus, increase in salary or promotion.
Tardiness
Showing up late in work or passing a task behind schedule is completely displeasing for bosses. Moreover, tardiness shows discourtesy to your co-workers who do their best not to be late and to the social contract you have with your company.
Perhaps occasional lateness is excusable, especially if it’s due to emergencies and inevitable reason like getting stuck in traffic, bad weather, or sickness. However, it’s time to take some measures if the worker’s tardiness becomes habitual.
Delays impact the entire workplace. It damages the morale and behavior of others. For example, if an employee is constantly tardy with no punishment, others will also feel at liberty to be late for work simply because someone does it too. Like a contagious disease, tardiness can quickly go viral and spill into many areas.
Others might also feel resentful seeing their co-worker consistently late without a valid reason. Gossips regarding contempt might spread speedily, and staff members could start to go against each other.
If you’re the type of employee who often gets late to work and has poor time-management skills, take the initiative to change your habits to avoid impacting others negatively. Find out what usually makes you run late and create necessary adjustments.
Social Media Addiction
Who wouldn’t love the convenience cellphones bring? You can reach out to your friends and family anytime you want, for any reason you have, and wherever you are — even at work. The accessibility and entertainment that phones bring are good for you to have a mental break at work. However, this could also distract you from performing your job excellently.
Excessive phone usage can intrude into productivity. So, even if your boss doesn’t ban phone use, it will be a good idea to put it away. Try avoiding the temptation of using your phone by keeping it inside your bag or drawer, and just check it occasionally to ensure you haven’t missed important calls.
Poor Communication
Words hold power. Even when used as a simple form of self-expression or during an angry rant, using foul language, slang, and expletives at work could bring damage to your career. People who speak with profanity are often viewed as uneducated, which influences how customers see workers and the entire company.
The 2016 Work Management Survey concluded that a majority of 57% swear in a workplace, whereas 25% say they swear daily, and 41% view swearing as unprofessional. Using profanity to a colleague could heat an argument while using such to a customer could affect the company’s image as a whole.
Poor communication could also come in the form of not answering emails, using inappropriate usage of tones, and choice of words.
Bad Body Language
Body language could show if a person is rude, unprofessional, or dishonest, affecting your relationship at work. For example, eye contact, scanning around the room, and slanting posture could signify poor body language.
Eye contact is vital in communication, and the lack of it signifies low esteem. While others are discussing, scanning around the room shows that you are not interested in the conversation, and slanting posture exhibits a lack of energy.
Inattentiveness
Distraction is everywhere and jumping into it seems to be a habit for most employees. If you are not attentive enough, your attention will dominate the mind and let it wander on unimportant things, leading you to a life full of disturbance. Eating food and playing wild music during work is a sign of inattentiveness to a workplace and irritates bosses.
Attentiveness is a trait that allows you to heed attention even to small details to avoid mistakes and terrible situations in the workplace.
Lack of Initiative
Employees who fall short of initiative often pass up golden opportunities, bringing down the effectiveness and productivity of your team. In addition, people lacking initiative often seem to be unresponsive, uninterested, demotivated, and lazy.
Inefficiency
Inefficiency causes time to be wasted to wait for people and processes. This impacts various aspects of a business —like time, quality, money, and morale. And perhaps, the most common cause of efficiency is poor communication quality in a workplace.
Excessively asking questions reflects badly in your intellectual capacity, which might take away opportunities for bigger projects and tasks. Avoiding tasks and making excuses could also damage your efficiency reliability in your workplace.
Making a mistake is inevitable as we are only humans. So, if you made one, give clear explanations instead of uttering excuses.
Bad Attitude
Bad attitudes in a workplace might include procrastination, dishonesty, tardiness, whining, gossiping and everything mentioned above. Employees possessing bad attitudes are often referred to as “cancer” within management.
Customers with experience with an employee’s bad attitude might leave and never come back. Attitude is important as it affects the performance and competence level of a team.
