How to Manage (and Avoid) Entitled Employees

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Last week, I met a good friend and fellow small-business owner, George Elliman, for a drink. George is the publisher of an Austin, Tex., lifestyle magazine, Tribeza. When we get together, we always talk shop. This time, the subject of employees who have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement came up, and we quickly went from shooting the breeze and peeling beer labels to pleas of, “Don’t get me started!”

Employee entitlement, I have found, is a hot-button issue for many small-business owners. The notion that some employees seem to think they are owed something just for showing up is a difficult pill to swallow for owners who put it all on the line every day. The problem is, a lot of us would rather eat paint chips than deal with the issue.

A few days later, I had dinner with a longtime friend, Linda Haines, who used to head human resources at a large international company where we both worked and who is now an executive coach for companies like Dell, AMD and Emerson. “The mind-set is ‘I don’t have to give much but I expect my employer/boss/co-workers will give me something — respect, pay, promotions, etc., — justbecause,’” she said.

I asked whether entitlement was the result of nature or nurture. Ms. Haines favors nurture. “It is well known that much of the younger generation has been raised to feel they are always winners, that they deserve to win,” she said. “So I guess it just figures that, when they get into the workplace, they will always expect to win — regardless of their relative effort, merits or whatever.”

Ms. Haines said entitlement manifested itself in the following workplace traits: a resistance to feedback, an inclination to overestimate talents and accomplishments, a tendency to be demanding and overbearing and to blame others for mistakes, and little sense of team loyalty. Sound familiar?

People who exhibit this behavior have difficulty adapting to new situations and are not agreeable because they see themselves as being the benchmark against which the behavior of others should be judged. Some researchers have described entitled people as having arrested emotional development, functioning as if they are about 6 years old with needs that must be met first. This is especially hard for business owners — most of whom come from a discipline of delayed gratification — to grapple with.

When entitled behavior has come into play at my agency, it has just stumped me. Understanding the root causes of a behavior usually helps me deal with it, but keeping these employees moving forward is like driving a car with only three wheels. And, in my experience, it’s not just younger employees. My toughest entitlement encounters have come from people who were well into their 40s and felt as if they should be further along in their careers and no longer needed to work 40 hours a week. They clearly expected that age would trump contribution. Both of these employees had to be let go, but I stretched out the process long beyond the expiration date. It was painful.

So how do we screen for this problem in the interview process? Last summer, I attended a Fast Pitch competition in Austin that was sponsored by RISE, a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurship. The company that won the Judges’ Award, Affintus, pitched a recruiting software solution. It’s a screening tool for finding prospective employees who most closely match the profile of your company’s most valued employees.

Deborah Kerr, a partner at Affintus, says the company has been referred to as the Match.com of jobs. Based in Austin, Tex., the four-year-old company creates customized online tests for candidates that assess three areas it considers predictive of success on the job: cognitive abilities, personality factors and culture fit. What gets customized from client to client is the job-formula algorithm.

“Say you had someone in your company who has the traits that made them successful in your workplace,” said Ms. Kerr. “We would have that person answer our questionnaire. We then create an algorithm to find that person, tailoring the formula if, say, the employer wants them to made decisions a little more quickly. That formula goes into a company’s library and job candidates take the test that compares them to your profile and others in the job-candidate pool.”

Ms. Kerr says there are a couple of factors that can test for entitlement traits, such as resourcefulness and adaptability. Another is oppositional — how agreeable or critical one is. Affintus charges companies an annual subscription fee based on the size of the company. Considering it can cost a company, on average, $13,000 to hire and train a $30,000-per-year employee, a $15,000 subscription for a 100-employee company would seem a reasonable investment.

I’ve found it helpful when interviewing to get into conversations that have candidates sharing their family roots. Those who grew up in entrepreneurial households — Mom or Dad ran a business or had a professional practice — usually think more entrepreneurially and are more likely to show initiative.

Ms. Haines suggests some good one-on-one interview questions can identify those hard-wired for entitlement: “Ask something like, ‘Tell me about a time when you made a major mistake or failed at something. Tell me what led up to it, how you dealt with it and, most importantly, what you learned from it.’ A person with a strong sense of entitlement will likely say he/she has never made a major mistake — or he/she will blame it on someone else.”

Ms. Haines also suggests asking candidates for an example of a time when they could not accomplish something on their own and they had to work as a team. Probe about the assignment, how their role compared with others in the team, and how things turned out. Listen for someone who solicits input and shares credit. If you hear a lot of we, you stand a better chance of finding a team player. If all you hear is I, you’ve probably got a problem.

Any other tips for managing — or avoiding — entitled employees?

MP Mueller is the founder of Door Number 3, a boutique advertising agency in Austin, Tex. Follow Door Number 3 onFacebook.

via@NewYorkTimes

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