If you feel like employee entitlement is on the rise, you are not alone. There is a growing amount of evidence that employees are developing an unrealistic set of expectations from their employer in the form of requested preferential treatment. Having an entitled worker is a headache for you as their leader, but also for the team who works with them. Here is a step by step guide for how to handle an entitled employee.
What is an entitled employee
An entitled employee is someone who has an inflated self-regard and requests high salaries, preferential treatment for projects, employment perks, and/or schedule flexibility. This employee believes that they have an automatic right to privileged treatment at work from their coworkers and leadership.
The reason that these demands are so off putting is that it is out of line with the employee’s actual performance or willingness to “put in the time” with grunt work tasks or projects. The entitled employee does not factor in the impact to the organization or their coworkers in their demands. It doesn’t matter if their expectations are fair to everyone, this is what the employee expects.
They may not seem very loyal to the organization or the team and may have a higher likelihood to go elsewhere. But they are such a headache that you wouldn’t mind seeing them go.
The level of entitlement is frustrating because it puts you in the constant position as a leader to draw the line in the sand for your expectations. Plus there is no reward by saying no all the time when you really want to be a flexible manager – but an entitled employee wants you to be so flexible that you can tie yourself in knots accommodating them.
The best way to deal with an entitled employee is to not hire them in the first place! Here are some essential interview questions to screen for entitled worker red flags!
Common examples of entitled employee beliefs
Entitlement can take several different forms, depending on what in particular the employee feels entitled to. Here are some of the common beliefs of an entitled employee:
- I should get a raise if I perform satisfactory work
- I expect a bonus every year, despite company performance
- I should be able to delegate or decline tasks that I don’t want to do
- My employer needs to set goals for my career
- I expect regular promotions
- I should be rewarded for average performance
- I can demand work that is interesting to me
- I can take breaks whenever it suits me
- I can take vacation or personal days whenever I want
- My team should accommodate my personal circumstances
- It’s my boss’ fault if I don’t perform my job requirements
- I only want to work in highly visible positions in the organization
- I believe I have exceptional skills or abilities and deserve to be paid more than others
What causes this entitlement mentality?
As much as it may want to be excused as a ‘millennial problem’, any employee has the potential to be an entitled worker if their expectations are out of line with what the team can offer or accommodate.
Employee entitlement is linked to narcissistic behavior and the belief that one is special and deserves preferential treatment. This leads to a disconnect between the employee and the manager because of the employee’s views on the “psychological contract” or the mutual agreement regarding the expectations and obligations of their employment.
Essentially, an entitled employee believes that their employer is obligated to give them what they believe they deserve falsely believing that they are special or that these are normal demands of business.
The dangers of having an entitled employee on your team
This entitled behavior is more than annoying – it is downright toxic for your team. Here are some of the dangers of having an entitled employee on your team.
Negative behavior and conflict
Research shows that entitled workers will display negative behavior which will result in conflict with their coworkers and with you as their leader who is not giving them what they feel they deserve.
The entitled employee also lacks reciprocity towards their coworkers. Because they believe that they deserve things, such as a trade in shift to accommodate their wants, they may not pay their team members back by helping them in the future. It creates a vicious circle of disharmony on your team.
Employee engagement
Because the entitled employee believes that they are owed something, they will become increasingly disengaged if they do not receive it. They are also less satisfied at their job and may always be looking elsewhere since you are so unfair.
Employee engagement it is a huge factor for overall team performance. Here are 10 ideas for how to improve team engagement in a meaningful way.
The rest of the team’s perception
The perception of fairness is very important to you as a leader. Employees will likely disagree with you on decisions, but it’s important for your reputation that your decision making is transparent and fair.
Not only will the entitled employee think that you catering to their every need is fair, the rest of the team will see this and think that you are playing favorites or that a ‘squeaky wheel’ will get results.
An employee’s perception on what is fair is all that matters, not your attempt as a manager to make things equitable. Here’s how to ensure things are equal on your team.
Additional work for you
The downside is that one can find themselves suddenly surrounded by a pile of special requests for schedules, vacations, start times, and work preferences. You will also have to have difficult conversations with the entitled person where you are setting boundaries and clarifying expectations.
Steps for how to handle an entitled employee
Clarify expectations – lay out the path to privilege
Because this entitled employee believes that they have the automatic right to demand certain things of their employer, you will have to rein them back in.
To do this, they need to understand what will get them those rights. For instance, what performance indicators they need to achieve to get a raise. If they think that they have the right to vacation whenever it suits them (operational need be damned!), they need to understand that there are peak times during some businesses, tax season for instance, where time off is not possible. Not everyone can have the week leading up to major holidays off.
This is not the conversation where you tell them that they are not the stellar employee that they think they are. You are clarifying with them them what your official or unofficial employment contract is.
Recognize that there may be some valid requests that come your way – don’t automatically blow them off
One on one conversations
Focus on the specific problem, that you have misaligned expectations in the employee/employer relationship.
Come prepared with examples for the staff member to understand where expectations are not lining up. Facts are difficult to argue with – even though they may try. Keep on message with what the specific problem is. They may be put off with the message. They could be under the impression that if they produce good work that they are untouchable!
Remember this isn’t a “gotcha” moment from you or a therapy session for them. the employee needs to understand that while they may be a decent performer, their entitled expectations have a negative impact on their team.
Like to avoid awkward conversations? Here are strategies to motivate yourself to have these difficult conversations and the steps to initiate a conversation with an employee.
Consistency is your friend
Keep on message, you will likely need to manage entitled expectations a few times over multiple conversations.
There are two ways that the employee can respond, both of them will work for you:
Option 1: They start to align with your expectations and manage their privileged demands. Option 2: They continue to request and expect more privilege than others. At this point, you may need to advise them that they could be happier at at different organization or team since they have expectations that you cannot meet.
If number 2 seems extreme to you, I have actually done this to one high needs employee. They ended up moving on elsewhere and we were mutually happy for this change. Although this may cause short term pain on your team while you hire and train someone new – it is worth it in the long term.
When it comes to how to handle an entitled employee, identify and respond to entitlement by managing expectations as soon as you can. This can turn in to a snowball rolling down the hill – picking up other staff members as it goes and escalating in entitled demands.
This will take continued effort on your part and likely follow up conversations as reminders – but it can be done.