What to do if an employee isn’t a team player

Look at the evidence

Before you start any form of dialogue, you must ascertain how serious the problem is. If an employee has not delivered a piece of work for a group project or there’s a potential bullying situation, this goes beyond an individual not being a team player. Instead, you should deal with this accordingly via the necessary disciplinary procedures.

However, if someone is generally doing their job but sometimes demonstrates e https://nobuyuki-shirai.com challenging behaviour when working in a group – or just isn’t fully integrated into the company (for example, they consistently refuse to take part in team events) – you can take a softer, more understanding approach.

Talk to the employee

Hold an informal discussion with the employee in question. Do not be accusatory, instead demonstrate that you are happy with their overall performance but are aware of a few instances when they could have been more considerate of their team members. Talk the employee through these scenarios, explaining alternative ways that they could approach these situations in the future.

Also, when appropriate, bring other affected employees into the meeting and work together to resolve the problem.

It’s also vital that you use this meeting to listen. The individual may be going through issues (at work or at home) that mean they are withholding when in a team situation. If there are any problems, ask how you can support them. You may find it useful to turn these into regular 1-2-1s whereby you can continually check in to see how they’re doing.

Know when to do nothing

It may be that the person in question is performing their job to a good standard but hasn’t built up a solid relationship with their colleagues. Whilst you should do everything that you can to encourage this, it’s also important to recognise that this isn’t something you can force.