Tiffany rolls her eyes when you give her a task to perform. Chris and Spencer can’t get along and constantly bicker in the workplace. Maggie complains about the unfairness of how work is assigned.

Each of these employees lacks professionalism. While professionalism is hard to define, we all know it when we see it. I call some of these workers “finger-pointers”, some “whiners”, and the rest “brats”, but all of their behavior is immature and difficult to bear in the workplace. Unfortunately, most supervisors will just say that the employee has a “bad attitude” and will be reluctant to coach or encourage better behavior from these employees. Then, when the bad attitude dude is fired, it is difficult for the company to win an unemployment compensation appeal or a discrimination suit because there is rarely a policy in the employee handbook that says, “Thou shalt keep a good attitude at work”.

But every handbook can include a professionalism policy. Your policy could read something like this: Continue reading Requiring Professionalism from Your Employees →