Difficult employees come in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of difficulty. They range from mildly annoyed to vindictive, with some employees chronically showing up to work ten minutes late and others actively working to get fired.

Behavior in the workplace can vary from one difficult employee to another, but they share many of the same tendencies. They can be manipulative, chronically dissatisfied, or passive-aggressive. Instead of taking responsibility for their behavior, they blame everyone around them, including yourself, for their problems. Their negative behavior often spills over into the general work environment, causing disruption to other top-performing employees.

What Difficult Employees Have in Common

• Difficult people create problems with you and your employees. His behavior is divisive and disturbing. They produce more negativity when seeking allies, leading to factions and a divided workplace.

• Difficult people know how to get attention. They value negative attention as much as praise, and other managers have likely found them “difficult” already.

• Difficult people can cultivate powerful friends in the company and use these allies to overlook. Effective at building close relationships with top management and human resources, they manipulate their “friends” in a positive, self-promoting manner.

5 tips for dealing with difficult people

When a difficult employee misbehaves, the typical manager’s first instinct is to fix the problem, but the difficult person’s goal is never to have the problem he created solved. The situation inevitably escalates and, concerned about how top management will view the conflict, managers respond by walking on eggshells. This creates a dysfunctional environment, resulting in an easy win for the difficult person. The manager’s job is to handle the situation and fire the difficult person. Here are five tips for doing this:

1. Your job description does not include the rehabilitation of difficult people. You are not a personal life coach. Not only is energy wasted on a difficult employee to misuse, but that person can use their efforts against you.

2. By focusing on a problem person, you are not giving other employees the attention they deserve. As a result, they will resent both you and the difficult person.

3. Don’t try to keep the peace. As a manager, you set the tone; if you walk on eggshells, other employees will too. Don’t let the negative person cultivate a toxic and dysfunctional work environment. Handle the situation and fire the troublemaker.

4. Be fair across the board and keep the lines of communication open. Clarify the rules in a group setting and make it clear that the same rules apply to everyone.

5. Keep a list of problems, incidents, dates, and conversations with the difficult person. Be clear that your conversations are recorded. Advise your boss and human resources of your plan to fire the difficult employee.