Are you rewarding your employee’s bad behaviour?

Yesterday afternoon I was at my desk lost in thoughts when the shrill cry of a child broke into my reverie. One of the little girls who lives in the house next door was having an almighty tantrum. The real screaming stamping the feet type. Mum stayed back, let her carry on, ignoring her. Eventually after what seemed like an age to me  the wee one calmed down and Mum came forward to give her a hug.

Contrast this with   a comment made in the programme “Banged Up” on BBC earlier this week. In this a group of young men who were likely to end up in jail for real went through the experience in a controlled way in a disused jail. Thankfully most of them saw the error of their ways and went onto  take more meaningful paths. Everything was filmed, including the private conversations in the cells and during one such conversation one of the young men said that he learned pretty quickly that at school if you played up you got attention. So that’s what he had done all of his life and now “playing up” had almost got him jailed.

So take this into the workplace. Do you have employees who play up or throw tantrums. If so what do you do? And – more to the point how do you pay attention to the employees who are not doing either.

We know that some people thrive on attention and still do good work. There is a balance.

We also know that some people do great work and don’t look for anything special.

But many of us will have experience of a coworker who grumbles about small things, makes a big deal about helping others , challenges looking at the small detail in their contract against what they are being asked to do and generally makes everyone suffer with their bad behaviour.All too often line managers bend over backwards to appease them – and just like children they learn that that behaviour will get them what they want.

So how about – as a way forward – we aim to reward great behaviour and ignore the others. I don’t know but maybe – like the wee girl in my street – it might work!