How to Handle Difficult Employees: Employers Rights

People, like shoes, come in all sorts of styles, shapes and colors. Unlike shoes, however, they also come with a variety of dispositions and personalities. Occasionally some of those are not the most agreeable. These are the employees who present management with special challenges and the need for the best people skills. These managers must be good at handling difficult employees.

Some employees fall into the category of “difficult” only during times of personal stress, illness, or family problems. While needing special treatment by management, these time periods are temporary. Other employees, however, are just difficult by nature. When handling difficult employees, management must understand these differences. There are certain ways to approach these two situations.

Look at some examples of handling difficult employees below

Sally (not her real name) worked in a department store. In stocking and keeping her section, Sally’s work was exemplary. Also, the customers like Sally and they often complimented her to the manager. However, Sally could not get along with the other employees and was a constant source of tension among the staff. She even displayed borderline insubordinate behavior toward the store manager. He was on the verge of dismissing Sally when a new manager trainee came to work in the store.


The trainee asked permission to work with Sally because she was a good employee in most respects. The trainee soon discovered from listening to Sally that she had a deep-seated sense of inferiority which she compensated for my being aggressive with her co-workers. He began praising Sally's good customer service and using her to train new hires on the proper procedure for keeping a section. As her sense of self-worth grew, her difficult nature subsided. Within three months, she was given a promotion.

Another example is Bill, a salesperson for a camera store. Normally the top producing salesman and of a bright and pleasant disposition, Bill suddenly became dour and disagreeable. This confused his manager until he received a call in the middle of the night to explain that Bill was in the hospital after suffering a heart attack. When Bill eventually returned to work, he was the same jolly, top producing salesperson everyone knew and loved.

Not all cases of difficult employees have a happy ending like Sally’s. The illustration points out, however, that it is in the best interest of management to try to find the root causes of any problem. In cases like Bill's, when the personal problem disappears so does the difficult situation.

Because in reality we do not live in “the best of all possible worlds,” problems of this nature will come up sometimes. Management must deal with the situation of handling difficult employees carefully. There is no need for the manager or human resources supervisor to return to school and get a degree in psychology.