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1. FEATURE STORY:
HELP NEGATIVE EMPLOYEES CHANGE THEIR ATTITUDE

Some negative employees constantly complain, criticize, judge, and never seem to be happy.  Their behavior is not directly harmful to anyone, but their bad mood is generally demoralizing.  Disciplining those employees is not the answer, though, because their behavior doesn't really break any workplace rules.

For example, an employee whose negativity manifests in undermining her supervisor and refusing work orders is deserving of discipline for insubordination.  However, an employee whose negativity shows in his habitual whining about work, yet he still listens to his supervisor and completes work assignments, is not insubordinate.

So, if discipline won't help to change some employees' negativity, what will?

Those employees need to motivate themselves to change their attitude.  They don't have to make a complete turnaround and become positive.  The idea is to not be negative.  But they might not know how.  That's where you can help. It's good for the morale of the department and company to have a heart-to-heart talk with those employees.  With a helping spirit, use the following advice to coach the employees in order to get them on the road to a better attitude.

1.  Get employees to evaluate their way of thinking.  Their normal behavior is to automatically complain, criticize, and make judgments.  Let them continue that behavior on one condition — they conduct a self-audit before saying anything.  They should ask themselves:

• Did anyone ask what I thought about the situation or person?

• Am I helping the company by complaining/criticizing/judging?

• Does the complaint/criticism/judgment help my department, co-workers, or manager?

• Will the complaining/criticizing/judging help the person I'm speaking to?

• Will the complaint/criticism/judgment help the person it is about?

If they find that their complaints, criticism, and judgment serve no purpose to anyone, even themselves, then that's exactly where they should keep all of that — to themselves.  Explain to the employees that it's okay to not agree with a project deadline, managerial move, co-worker's personality, etc., but complaining, criticizing, or judging won't change anything.

2.  Give employees advice on how to change their tendency to complain, criticize, and judge.  If they can't do any of that unless it helps someone, then what can they do?  They can't keep their feelings pent up, either, because that will lead to a host of other problems, such as stress and high blood pressure.

To change their negative feelings and attitude toward others, they need to change or distance themselves from the information or people contributing to their negativity.

Information may influence employees to be negative, so they need to change their daily intake of information or balance it with an equal amount of positive information and activities.

Example: An employee reads the newspaper in the morning and gets a daily dose of bad news about the war in Iraq.  It's easy to tell him to stop reading the paper, but that might be part of a morning routine and a hard habit to break.  So he should counter that intake of negative information with a positive activity, such as sitting down for breakfast with his children before they go off to school or going out for a quick jog to boost his energy.

Rather than, or in addition to, information, a person might be contributing to employees' negativity.  That person could be anyone from an unfriendly coffee shop clerk to a temperamental co-worker. They should limit their interaction with that person or avoid them all together, if possible.

3.  Teach employees to focus on the "bright side," rather than what's wrong with a person or situation.  Right now, it's easy for them to focus on the negative, so focusing on the positive will be tough in the beginning.  But with practice and over time, they will naturally see the bright side.

Give the employees examples to highlight how you want them to cast complaints in a more positive light.

Complaint: "I hate waking up early in the morning to come to work."

The bright side: "At least you're physically able to get out bed and you have a job to go to."

Complaint: "I can't stand getting stuck in traffic every morning."

The bright side: "You have your own car to drive and are in control of your commute, unlike those who have to take public transportation."

Complaint: "My supervisor always holds meetings at 4:30 on Wednesdays, when we're supposed to leave at 5."

The bright side: "Would you rather she schedule the meeting at the same time on Friday?"

Learn more about what influences employees to be negative and how they can change their attitude by eliminating those negative forces from their daily lives.  Order a recording of AHI's web conference, Dealing With Negative Attitudes In The Workplace, originally presented on September 19, 2007.

2. CATHIE'S CORNER:
GIVING REFERENCES: LET THE TRUTH BE YOUR GUIDE

Recently, the question I've been getting asked the most is about references: What can an employer legally say?

The legal answer is, of course, that an employer may say anything that is true, that they have a good-faith belief is true, or that represents their honest and supportable opinion.  There may be state-specific laws regarding signed releases, sending an employee a copy of what you said, or making a differentiation between what can be said verbally versus what can be said on paper, but no law in any state prohibits an employer from telling the truth.

Many companies have established policies that limit references to confirming dates of employment, job title, salary information, and, possibly, rehire status.  So many companies have such a policy, in fact, that the general public has come to believe it is the law.  I don't know how many times I've had an employee try to tell me that their employer violated the law by giving out more information than I've indicated above.  But such a belief is not based in fact.

Now that we've established what an employer can say, we come to the issue of what an employer should say.

There is no one, hard and fast answer to this question.  You may feel more comfortable only verifying the employee's stats.  Of course, if that's the only information you'll provide, you can hardly expect other employers to provide additional information when you're the one doing the asking.

To be perfectly honest, I can't see the point of providing references at all if you're not going to give any information except "name, rank, and serial number."  Okay, you've confirmed that the employee really worked where they said they did, but it tells the prospective employer nothing about the job they did, their reliability, their behavior in the workplace.  Isn't that the whole point?

The pervasive belief is that if you give out any other information and the employee then does not get the job, you can be sued.  Well, that's true in the sense that the law does not prohibit the employee from suing.  But if the information you have provided is true and you can provide evidence to that effect, any suit will not be successful. I have yet to hear about a case in which an employer was successfully sued for providing negative information that was true and documented.

But — there's always a but — there is a gray area.  What do you say, for example, when an employee was fired because you were morally certain that the employee was stealing from your company, but you had no concrete proof?

Well, you can say that the employee was fired on suspicion of theft, but even that is questionable in my mind.  Despite the fact that I stand firmly on the side of providing actual information, I hesitate to say anything to suggest that an employee has committed a crime without having solid proof.  So that might be the time to fall back on "name, rank, and serial number."

Final suggestion: Put a strict limit on who can give out any reference information.  Only allow HR or senior managers to communicate it to prospective employers; you don't want to have all your managers and supervisors giving out information without HR's knowledge.  By all means consult with the managers and supervisors if you don't have any first-hand knowledge about the employee.

Catherine Bannon is the President of HR by Request, Inc., in Marshfield, MA (catherine.bannon@gmail.com). Bannon worked for 10 years in HR management before starting her consulting firm.

WHEN AN EMPLOYEE IS AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN

What's a manager to do when you talk about safety procedures until you're blue in the face, but you still have that one employee who doesn't always listen?  It's a safe bet that if you don't do anything...View the full story on our website.

Kick back, relax, and take a few minutes to check out the new HR Soapbox, "The Workplace Contains The Biggest Threats To Your Health," in which an editor is inspired by Stephen Colbert's "ThreatDown" to warn you about hidden health hazards in the workplace.