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If these first efforts fail to stop the passive aggressive behavior, you can try to impose consequences when they don't meet their goals. Refuse to recap meetings for someone who arrives late, which both encourages those who showed up on time and penalizes those who dawdled. And if someone makes excuses for missing a deadline, consider saying, "you must have too much on your plate," and look to others to take on additional assignments. If this seems like a passive aggressive response, well, you may have to fight fire with fire.
When it's time to throw in the towel
Ultimately, you may have to acknowledge that you've done all you can do and either transfer that person to another department or fire them.
At Voices.com, a marketplace for voiceover talent based in London, Ontario, all 20 staff members attend a mandatory daily "huddle" that lasts 15 minutes, says David Ciccarelli, the company's president and CEO. When one department head started to show up late, leave early, or just skip the meeting altogether, Ciccarelli knew there was a problem.
"It's my health check," he says of the huddle. "If someone's withdrawing constantly from that, I know there's a deeper issue because they don't want to be seen by other people in the company."
This particular employee also made disparaging remarks about Voices.com customers who had problems or complaints. Ciccarelli met with the person and asked for an attitude improvement, but the problem only grew worse and he had to fire the employee.
"Everybody saw it coming," he says. "It was starting to wear on other people."
