Kariuki manages receivables in Westlands, Nairobi, and decides to nepotistically hire a cousin's friend who jokes around, cuts corners, and blows off minor firm rules.
Others in the office start following the same shortcuts, client call notes in the system start becoming exceedingly vague, and some refunds get pushed through and approved without the required two-person check.
Kariuki pleads for patience with the CEO because the new hire "just needs time," but gossip proliferates around the office and error rates climb.
The department starts spending weekends fighting fires on previous blunders done during the week instead of resting and then courting new business during the regular week.
Vendors begin to notice late reconciliations and insist on cash-on-delivery terms as their trust in the firm drops. The once-proud receivables unit that boasted impeccable audits now has a reputation for sensationalism and drama, all from one bad apple hire.
Researchers Stephen Dimmock, William Gerken, and Nathaniel Graham study numerous financial advisors and track branch mergers that randomly pair up colleagues. The research differentiates between direct peer influence versus shared incentives or management.
When a financial advisor joins a branch that has misconducts in its ranks, then there is a shocking 37 percent chance that a once clean advisor will start to engage in similar misconduct than if the financial advisor joins a clean branch during a merger.
Then the numbers get even higher if an employee shares the same demographics, like gender or ethnicity, etc., with the other staff doing misconduct. So, similarity of backgrounds makes it more likely that a clean employee will copy the misconduct, fraud, or general deviance.
What can executives do to stop bad apple employees spoiling the whole bunch of employees? The research shows that acting swiftly to discipline and then remove misconduct, even minor misconduct, acts as a serious deterrent.
Next, very clear disclosure statements and forthright policies about the composition of teams, nepotism, and proper behaviour helps drop misconduct and bad employees influencing others.
Further, Will Felps, Terence Mitchell, and Eliza Byington study how a single consistently negative team member can destroy a whole entire unit through mimicry, displaced aggression, and mood contagion.
The bad employee’s emotional tone spreads through automatic unconscious mimicry, sensemaking discussions amplify unifying behaviour towards misconduct, and defensiveness against outside others sets in.
The research highlights the need for swift action to stop negativity from setting in rather than calm slow tolerance. A quick and focused response prevents downward spirals that waste time and team attention.
An applied synthesis by Saravana Jaikumar recapitulates research on social loafing, workplace deviance, and affects inside teams. When coworkers perceive that others on the team are social loafing and not being productive, then they seek revenge and do the same.
Only when there is a threat of social exclusion by colleagues does the laziness and social loafing of the bad employee not spoil the rest of the team.
Managers need to remember not to show patience and rehabilitation to errant employees. Too much patience will spoil the whole team. Swift action is necessary.
How? First, start with creating a structure. Publish branch or team-level integrity dashboards, rather than only individual scorecards, and track near-miss incidents as leading indicators.
After any team member mergers or restructuring of team composition, apply purposeful deliberate mixing rather than allowing random office seating to occur.
Infiltrate culture champions into troubled teams and socialise new joiners through high-performing mentors. In cases of misconduct, remove chronic offenders instantly, since peer effects create externalities with far-reaching consequences affecting the whole team or department. Those practices lock in data-driven solutions to curb individuals bringing down group performance.
Second, tighten up everyday practice. Model appropriate language for ethical pushback so junior staff can push back against pressure without hurting their own career.
Reframe meeting norms so people speak about facts, not rumors, and task owners close loops on accomplishments in front of the whole department.
Third, bring about peer shadowing across teams and branches so that good habits propagate more quickly than sidebar comments in corridors.
Use entry filters that screen revenge-prone personalities where teamwork is key, and pair creative teams with facilitators who use critique but do not let moods descend into cynicism.
Fourth and final, human resources departments across Kenya pay top Shillings for good output, but office politics and networks reward team norms even more.
One corner-cutter deviant does not generally act alone for very long just as one ethical employee does not act in integrity isolation either. Staff, both good and bad, influence each other.
Leaders who can detect contagious employees early and respond decisively will protect their staff from corruption, guard their clients from declining service standards, and champion the future of highly efficient output.
Acting fast is the right thing to do and safeguards your firm’s next five years of growth.
David J. Abbott is a director at aCatalyst Consulting. [email protected]
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