When You Don’t Get Along With Your Employee

At Spark Hire, we talk a lot about how diverse the office and the workplace is. After all, if you want to have a successful business then you had better have diverse and unique ideas circulating throughout the office, right? Diversity is a huge step towards success but it can also work as a disadvantage. With so many different views, personalities and perspectives there’s bound to be disagreements and dislikes. It’s impossible to think that an office full of individuals will be 100 percent cohesive and together. Of course, they can all work as a team, but they may not all like each other. Things get even more complicated if it’s the employer that dislikes their employee. In a position of power, this dislike can be manipulated and used in all the wrong ways. Read through this article and make sure you are steering clear of this particular instance and dealing with your dislike for an employee in the right way.

There are very few areas other than the office where you are forced to be with and work with people that you may not like. In other areas of our lives, we generally have a choice to avoid those we dislike. If your significant other has a friend you dislike, you tolerate them when you have to and avoid them when you can. However, in the office if there is a member of your team that you dislike you still have to work with them and collaborate with them daily. Even more, if you’re an employer or a manager and don’t get a long with a particular employee, but they get their work done and do a great job, it can really start to take a toll on your mood.

Bad managers or employers would take their dislike for this employee and use it to undermine their work or their work ethic. Doing this is not only wrong, it’s completely selfish. As an employer or manager you should understand that certain personalities clash- and that includes your own. Just because you disagree with an employee or with their life choices doesn’t mean you can work against them and their work. A good manager would realize the difference in opinion and personality and work to set it aside and not let it affect their interactions, daily work and the company’s productivity. Personal issues need to be set aside in the workplace and you need to realize that working with all different personalities is something that is expected of you as a manager.

At the same time you should consider this possibility: maybe they dislike you as well. Often times we focus all of the attention on our own personal side. “I don’t like them because they said this” or “they are annoying because they do this.” It’s not so often that we step back and take a minute to think about why this person is rubbing us the wrong way or what we may be doing to influence this person to act a certain way towards us. You may not like your employee Susan because she seems unfriendly and never goes out of her way to talk to you. Ever. What you probably didn’t consider though is that your vivacious, bubbly personality may be overpowering or intimidating to her and she doesn’t know how to communicate with you. Thinking of her side may explain why she never talks to you and why you, in turn, dislike her.

Of course, this isn’t always the case. However, it’s important to try and see the issue from both sides. It’s also important to know that we aren’t going to get along with everyone, but we have to attempt to make work relationships, well, work. Being a manager gives you a certain amount of power as well as responsibility. While doing research for this article I read so many stories where employers wanted to fire their employees simply because they disliked them. Their employees were getting their work done, but they didn’t like how they acted or the way they worked. This sounds ridiculous and counterproductive to a company’s progress. Avoid being this kind of employer and manager and instead, work towards being able to work with people of all backgrounds and personalities. That is what will make you a great manager or employer and in turn, make your company a great place to work.

IMAGE: Courtesy of Wannabe Employee Blog