How to Stop Toxic Employee Complaints [ Reasons ]

It is always important that employees are able to address their concerns to the higher-ups. However, there are those employees who have the tendency to make constant complaints, even about the little things, and will just make things worse for them.

If there’s a valid reason for the complaint, then there shouldn’t be any problems, but if it is something as insignificant as an employee’s hairstyle that one constantly moans about, then it’s nothing more than pointless whining. Employee complaints should contain information regarding something that could have negative effects on the business and employee productivity and performance. Anything else should be considered meaningless.

Reasons Why Constant Complaining Is Toxic

• It  makes things seem worse than it actually is. Hearing about complaints constantly can make things seem bad even though they’re not. It could just be a minor problem that could easily be solved, but hearing over and over will do nothing but create a negative mood.

• It becomes a bad habit. Because one constantly complains, then there will be a tendency to complain on just about everything. Every single situation is a problem, all coworkers might just be a hindrance, employee surveys would just seem like a hassle and there’s nothing good in the company. If one focuses more on the negative, then it’ll be really hard to look into the positive side of things.

• Constant complaining influences your way or seeing things. If you decide to keep focusing on the negative, everything else will be seen as nothing as something that could possibly go wrong  or something that would be a complete waste of your time.

• If you keep complaining, or you hear someone else keep complaining, you will only think that things can only keep getting worse.  Doing so can have a huge impact on employee performance considering that people keep talking about the negative, everyone else will just think that whatever they do will just end up in failure.

• Constant complaining makes people less creative and innovative. It will give people a sort of mindset which will tell them that anything new they try will just go wrong or end up not working. And it is usually the employee’s that complain the most that often shoot down new ideas.

• Being negative all the time will create more negative people. And having more people that are negative will prevent optimists from thinking more on the positive side as they will most likely be labeled as naive and unrealistic by the majority. And that might lead to less productivity which will not look good on their employee evaluation.

• Being pessimistic all the time will make people miss great opportunities. Lets say that you have a  performance evaluation coming up that could lead to a promotion. Instead of doing whatever you can to get it, you keep thinking you won’t because there’s no way you could even if you tried. It is that kind of thinking that often destroy one’s career, so always try to think positive rather than letting the negativity get to you.

Ways on How to Stop Toxic Complaining in the Office

As an employer, it is your job to learn and try to find the balance between employee venting out their frustration and complaining about every single thing. It’s also your job to make sure that the employees complaints do not get out of hand and disrupt productivity. So it is essential that employers evaluate every single complaint that’s made. So here are some ways to prevent constant employee complaints from being toxic:

• Listen to what your employees have to say. As an employer, no matter what kind of problems the employee is facing, you will need to hear out what these problems are first. Although it may be hard to listen to what your employees might complain about, especially if it’s questioning the company’s actions or if it’s about them assessing management and seeing that there are problems, it’s always best to listen to all of it. It will help you understand the different kinds of solutions to provide and prevent things snowballing into much bigger problems.

• Find ways to re-channel employee frustrations. Although venting out frustrations can be good for the business, it’s only good if it was channeled in a proper way. Employees might be tempted to channel it through means such as constantly arguing with supervisors or even screaming at other employees. So it’s up to you to properly assess employees and find ways such as creating small groups that will help find the best ways to approach these issues that are causing such frustrations.

• As a leader, you will have to constantly monitor employees. Doing so will help you understand the possible problems the employee is facing and can help you prevent the employee from making constant complaints that could ruin the business. So tracking employee performance and creating employee satisfaction surveys can definitely help you see where a problem might stemming from, helping you prevent it from escalating into something that you can no longer control.

• Get creative in dealing with these problems. All employees will have different problems, and sometimes an employee might butt heads with another. It is up to you to be innovative enough to think of ways that can help solve these problems. For example, if you have two employees that constantly argue with one another and both come to you to vent our their frustrations, then you will need to find a way that both of them can sort their issues out together. So something like putting both of them in a therapy session together might just solve the problem. Never be afraid to try something that you think might help everyone, and especially you, out.

All kinds of complaints have to be dealt with. Most managers just focus on the complaints made by the customers, but what they should know is that employee complaints is just as important to deal with. So if you know your employees are having problems, always take the time to hear out their complaints and try to solve them.