CHAPTER 16
Tips to Avoid Hiring a Toxic Employee
by Christine Porath
Nothing is more costly to an organization’s culture than a toxic employee. Research shows that rudeness is like the common cold—it’s contagious, spreads quickly, and anyone can be a carrier.
Dylan Minor, a visiting assistant professor at Harvard Business School, and Michael Housman, chief analytics officer at Cornerstone OnDemand, studied just how costly toxic employees are using a large data set of nearly 60,000 workers across 11 firms in various industries, including communications, consumer services, financial services, health care, insurance, and retail.1
How does hiring a toxic employee compare to hiring a superstar? Minor and Housman found that one toxic employee wipes ...
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