Saad Sultan

How to deal with negative people at work

Listen to the employee or coworker’s complaints until you are certain that they feel heard out and listened to. Sometimes people repeat negative sentiments over and over because they don’t feel like you have really listened to them. Ask questions. Clarify their statements. Make sure that you have actively listened.

Decide if you believe the employee or coworker has legitimate reasons for their negativity. If you decide affirmatively, ask if they’d like your help to solve the problem. If they ask for help, provide advice or ideas for how the coworker can address the reason for their negativity.

If you listen to the coworker’s negativity and decide their concerns are not legitimate, practice personal and professional courage and tell them what you think. Tell the coworker you care about their concern and about their happiness at work, but you disagree with their assessment of the situation. You do not, for example, agree that management lied or withheld information improperly to mislead staff. You believe that the information was provided as soon as it was available.

Deal with perpetually negative people in these ways.

• Avoid spending time with a negative coworker. For all of the reasons cited, you want to limit the amount of time you spend with them.
• If you are forced, through your role in the company, to work with a negative person, set limits. Do not allow yourself to become drawn into negative discussions. Tell the negative coworker, you prefer to think about your job positively. Avoid providing a sympathetic audience for the negativity.
• Suggest the negative person seek assistance from human resources or their manager. Try to steer the person in the direction of getting help with their negativity.

• If all else fails, talk to your own manager or human resources staff about the challenges you are experiencing in dealing with the negative person. Your manager may have ideas, may be willing to address the negativity, and may address the issue with the negative person’s manager.
• Remember, persistent negativity that impacts the work and environment of coworkers is a work behavior that may require disciplinary action up to and including employment termination.

If negativity among employees in your company is persistent, if the issues that warrant negativity are left unaddressed, and the negativity affects your ability to professionally perform your work, you may want to consider moving on. Your current culture will not support your desired work environment. And, if no one is working to improve a work culture that enables negativity, don’t expect the culture to change anytime soon. Move on.