Workplace culture is difficult to cultivate and maintain. One of the key factors in poor employee morale is working on a team of negative or toxic colleagues. One of the best ways to deal with a toxic worker, is to avoid hiring them in the first place.
Below are three questions you should not waste your time asking, and five questions you should swap in to your interview process as soon as possible. Here are interview questions to help avoid hiring toxic workers.
I’m sure everyone has worked with a toxic coworker. They are the one that adds stress to your day because they are being passive aggressive with their comments, gossiping about others, and blaming others for their errors. Toxic workers are dangerous for morale because too often their attitude can spread to others around them. According to this study, 38% of workers loosened their definition of quality work as a result of toxic coworkers.
Toxic individuals need to be performance managed and take a lot of time and energy from middle management keep up the positive momentum of change and improving morale for the entire team.
As a manager, you need to ensure that you are hiring the right people for the role. This doesn’t just include hiring qualified applicants, you also must not hire someone who will continue to add toxicity to an already toxic work environment. According to the study above, organizations that avoid hiring toxic workers can avoid $12,500 in costs.
Hiring workers that are potentially toxic employees will make matters worse, whereas a good employee will ideally dilute out the impact of the small group of people that are generating the toxic environment.
Another consideration is, a bright shiny new employee may have the potential to be influenced in to joining the gossip mill, or join in on someone else’s poor work attitude. If they see their coworkers saying, “it’s not my job”, how likely are they to adopt a similar work ethic or start repeating the same phrase?
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How do we manage to avoid hiring toxic or potentially toxic workers?
The best opportunity for screening is during an interview using strategic questions that will help reveal some red flags that may occur: if they currently work in a toxic workplace, they are toxic contributor, or they are easily impressionable.
Chances are that if they are making a lateral move, their workplace is less than ideal for one reason or another. They may not be the toxic individual at their place of work, but may bring preconceived notions of what a professional environment is like, which could include negativity towards coworkers and management. This isn’t a red flag that would keep you from hiring the individual, more like a pink flag where you need to closely monitor this individual while they are on-boarding and their first few projects.
People are usually on their best behavior during an interview.
The reality is that people will typically behave themselves during an interview. An interview really is, “boast about your work ethic and teamwork” guided by questions. So how do you figure out what questions to ask to ensure they are a good fit for your organization and will not contribute to a toxic environment?
Carefully curated interview questions are essential. Your time is precious and typically in a panel interview there is an investment of time by many other busy people.
How to create revealing interview questions
Here is how to ask some personality revealing questions. I love asking questions where there are lots of opportunities for red flags. Writing interview questions is a challenging balance between asking the right questions with a good distribution of measurement topics.
The right balance of questions is as much about what to ask, as well as what not to ask. There are some very stereotypical HR questions that make their way in to the interview question mix. Most likely because they feel like they have to ask these questions, but there are better ways to phrase things so you get less generic answers and can feel confident that you have screened to a potentially toxic worker.
A great piece of advice I received about interviewing was to leave “thoughtful pauses'” to see if they will fill in with more answers or explanations. This has proven to be good advice because I have had numerous people talk themselves out of a job by waiting for the real opinions, and motivations to rise to the surface.
Learn how candidates really think with these scenario based leadership interview questions!
Interview questions – what not to ask
There are tried and true questions, and as a result have become anticipated. Remember, the candidate is likely on their best behavior and came prepared for these generic questions with an answer that may not meet your needs for screening purposes.
When it comes to interview questions to help avoid hiring toxic workers, here are the worst questions to ask when trying to identify a potentially toxic employee. Don’t waste your time with these!
Why are you leaving your current job?
This is an anticipated question that people will expect and likely rehearse. The best you will get is a corporate speak about how this is somehow a better opportunity for them. They may reveal genuine enthusiasm, but for the purpose of screening for toxic workers, not so much. Toxic workers are not dumb, often they are adept at playing politics in the office. You may encounter someone who is making a lateral move.
Tell me about a time you had a conflict with another coworker
This is fairly standard question, my issue with this question is that it is too broad and you won’t be able to draw anything useful out of it. Technically they have answered the question if they discuss something about teamwork. The most common answer I hear is frustration with their coworker that they feel is not pulling their weight. This doesn’t help me narrow down their communication style when there is something at stake between peers.
How would your boss or coworkers describe you?
Once again, too general of a question. Someone is going to brag about their teamwork, work ethic, multitask…. you get the idea. It’s good to have a general question like this, but it should never be repeated again as a “why should be hire you” question.
Remember, your time is precious. The more specific the question, the more likely you are going to get the true answers you are looking for, rather than practiced general HR questions. The purpose of an interview is to find the best fit for your organization. If you hire a toxic worker, expect the negativity to leech in to many different areas.
Interview questions to help avoid hiring toxic workers
I’m more interested in putting the candidate on the spot and asking much more specific questions. Keep in mind, if they are a brand new grad, they may not have a lot of industry practice to handle the questions. You can probe them with slightly alternate scenarios that have the same intended answer.
Tell me about a time you disagreed with a decision your manager made. How did you handle it?
As you may have realized, management includes making decisions that may not be popular, but are done because they are the right thing to do. I would expect an ideal candidate to seek to find out why a decision was made if they took issue with it, and demonstrate acceptance of the change. I would not want to hire someone who uttered the comment, ‘management is going to do whatever they want to do’. This is very passive aggressive and a breeding ground for resentment and toxicity.
Tell me about a time you took an unpopular stand amongst your coworkers
This is a better question than the general conflict question listed in what not to ask. It is more specific to how they interacted with their peers when there was change/controversy and they took an opposing view. You should be looking for a candidate that was diplomatic and respectful when communicating their opinion or actions to their peers. I would not like to see someone who brushes off their coworker’s concerns. Bonus points if someone provides an example where they collaborated to come up with a solution.
What would you do if you if you overheard your coworkers saying negative remarks about another coworker?
I want to hear a candidate say that this is an unacceptable practice as one of the first things out of their mouth. I want a candidate that has a gut reaction where they are absolutely aghast that this would occur. I don’t want someone who would give me an answer where they do not clearly state that it is unacceptable, or after giving a response, that it’s not acceptable as an afterthought. Look for a candidate that would be upset this is happening around them and can politely communicate to the other staff member that they did not want to participate in office gossip.
Comes up with solutions to problems rather than just complaints.
Create a scenario question that is specific to your industry while working in a team. There should be a real consequence to the problem, such as a missed deadline or negative customer outcome as a result of the scenario. Try and ask something technically specific to your industry where you can also assess their knowledge base. Two for one questions are fantastic!
What would you do if a coworker was encouraging you to perform a task that wasn’t within the current process guidelines, but was OK “because that’s what we always do”?
This is a multi-faceted question because it will reveal how someone communicates effectively with their peers, how they raise potential process improvement topics with management, and how impressionable they are. This is a red flag for a candidate to follow along without question if they knew it was not the current written process or industry best practice. They should also be able to communicate their concern with management without being a ‘tattle-tale’ and alienating themselves from their coworkers. This question would help determine how impressionable an employee was if they just followed along without question. Often times toxic coworkers do not operate alone and seek out a following that they can commiserate and complain with. A toxic echo-chamber effect can occur and spread.
Good interview questions are a time investment upfront, but if you do them correctly once, you should be ready to go for future candidates. Remember how much time and money you will save down the road with a good hire, and the time cost now is minimal in comparison.