I have a small company in Japan. We have been doing this for a while.
I have read many posts regarding Japanese toxic working environments and it never occurred to me that my own business would turn that way.
I’ve hired a Japanese female about two years ago. She is very hard working and gets things done but she is extremely toxic.
She talks back to me and my general manager. She uses very sarcastic language and makes those noises you get at work when someone questions something: **えっ！？ あ〜。。。 えっえっえっ！**
You can imagine the tone and volume of her comments. Quiet enough to make people understand she doesn’t agree. Even thou it is not a relevent issue.
Is not only my oppinion, her boss, the general manager (Japanese F) doesn’t like her either. She also find her tone of voice sarcasticcally agressive.
She is passive-aggressive and responds with sarcasm.
As just one exampleegarding one of the projects she directs: *”I was not notified about that contract? When did it start?”*
So her reply was: **”You were included in the email thread”**
While other staff (foreigners) reply with friendly comments **”Ups, sowy! I thought you read the conversation!”**
I receive mountains of emails daily and have no time to read them all in detail. I would rather each manager follow through and notify whatever they consider relevant. In this case, the beggining of her client’s contract should be mentioned on the work chat (I believe)
I am afraid to keep working with her becuase I fear she will infect the rest of the staff with her attitude. We had a very friendly, family like relationship before she came but I also can’t afford to fire her.
It won’t work to talk her into changing her attitude. The aggressiveness of her leadership will inevitably increase. I have tried to become friendly but that also doesn’t work becuase she takes the “I don’t have to be friend with my boss” kinda attitude.
What would you do in this situation?
16 comments
Have tried sitting her down and have a talk with her? After all you’re her boss and if you’re not satisfied with your employee you should either let them know and have them improve or let them go.
If firing her isn’t a possibility and talking to her won’t help then you have very few options. Possibly a team building exercise to try to get her to view problems through other people’s eyes? Seems unlikely someone like that would take onboard what you’re trying to teach though.
There are two ways to look at it:
1. The ethical way. See, talking back to the employees or bosses is actually okay. Being rude isn’t, but disagreeing is totally fine. Trying to find a common language would help greatly.
2. The business way. Employees who are toxic and very productive are worse than employees who aren’t toxic and average in productivity. Therefore, if you can’t find the common language, it’s fine to sit down and address this aggression in no uncertain terms.
Purely my impression, she sounds unprofessional merely by trying to put people down with the “I thought you…” things.
She is clearly unhappy in her work situation. The fact that she is openly behaving like this is a sure sign of it. Is she overloaded, or being asked to perform tasks that weren’t in her original job description? Is your workplace well-run, or is it disorganized? Her manager should have a chat with her (before you do) to try to get to the bottom of it.
Whatever the case, she isn’t a good fit for your company, and she’s making everybody uncomfortable. You know what they say about one bad apple spoiling the bunch.
She expects you to have the same standard as she has in her job.
You are saying that you didn’t had time to read mails. This is your problem. She also has lot’s of stuff to do and can’t afford to spend time managing you.
Some ways to deal with this is:
1. Either you to follow up your emails
2. If too many email, you are probably micro managing too many things
3. You try to isolate her from the rest of the team by working on a project on her own. (she’ll probably like it)
I consider myself as potentially toxic in some environments. I also get the problem of not reading my mails because of doing too much, which is annoying to my co-workers and I recognize this is bad and my responsibility.
Unless you have a rule or have specifically discussed it before, it seems pretty reasonable for to have expected you would be aware of something you were cc’d on.
But yeah, there isn’t really any possible advice to give other than talk to her and document talks so that you can let her go in the future if things don’t improve.
But when you talk to her you should have better examples than the one here
How can you not afford to fire her if she will destroy your company?
If you cannot change her behavior, what other choice do you have?
I don’t know.
Have you tried discussing this at the pub after a couple of beers?*
Shit, maybe reinstate *Premium Friday* and discuss it at the office after a couple of beers. Or even just lunch (not just her, take 1:1 lunch with everyone on a rotation).
Just one thing, does this OL actually *know* that you’re the Big Boss? i.e. she’s not labouring under the misunderstanding that you’re just some foreign employee who will be going home soon?
No matter which way you dice it, it does seem strange for an employee to not at least be civil with the boss of their company, even if it’s actually a two-facedness thing.
*To clarify, I mean professionally. Not the boss-trying-to-get-the-OL-to-the-love-hotel thing. Alcohol social lubricant, and all that.
I can’t really read tone on the internet, but are you sure you aren’t reading into this too much or expecting unreasonable participation?
The あ and え noises in conversation seem to just be a common thing that some Japanese people do a lot and some don’t. I don’t think it really implies passive aggression on its own. Usually people seem to do it just to signal that they’re still engaged and actively listening.
The email example seems perfectly fine. She sent you the info in the way she was supposed to and you didn’t read it. Being too busy is a fine reason to make a mistake, but it’s still your mistake, not hers. Expecting her to apologize for not keeping you up to date on your own work seems off to me. And if you can’t keep your work emails organized as is then maybe devise a better system and share that system with employers rather than have them guess what needs to be followed up on and how.
Not wanting to be friendly with a boss also seems perfectly reasonable. If you can be friends great. But having a strictly professional relationship should be more than enough for a workplace. Your purchasing time and labor from your employees, so if they’re providing that then they’re holding up their end. If you want to pay for friendship and atmosphere then that’s more of a snack bar thing
You’ve kind of turned her into the necessary asshole. In my experience, the necessary asshole is seldom truly necessary yet always an asshole.
I imagine that after two years, she’s still a contracted employee. You could tell her that her contract will not be renewed and be done with it. Getting rid of someone for creating a toxic work environment is perfectly legitimate, and you’ll want to do so because once she hits the five-year mark and gets upgraded to the 正社員 title by law, oh boy, if you think she’s bad now, you’re going to look back fondly on these days about how much of a sweetheart she was.
I’m a partner in a Japanese company with Japanese staff. I don’t tolerate disruptive behavior by staff. In the rare times I’ve had to deal with that problem I’ve reminded them that they need to maintain proper office decorum. In one case where that didn’t work I told them I was withholding their bonus because their performance was unsatisfactory and they quit.
Passive aggressive people ARE THE WORST.
Get rid of her. She could produce high quality work product but if she makes the environment toxic, she will cause other good employees to leave and create a shitty environment.
>I am afraid to keep working with her becuase I fear she will infect the rest of the staff with her attitude. We had a very friendly, family like relationship before she came but I also can’t afford to fire her.
This says it all. Your work environment has turned to garbage after she came on. As the boss YOU need to fix this by letting her go or your other quality employees will leave!
if she’s any but 正社員, you can lawfully terminate her contract with the reason being 人間性が低いため.
You can also apply a rule which would promote friendliness, work productivity, like receiving employee of the month, pay raises, bonuses or other types of allowance. in addition to work performance as the thing being evaluated, stress on the office environment part hardly.
Your choice of options leaves you with nothing. This is YOUR company, either talk to this person and fix the issue, get rid of her, or let it continue and get worse. Most good managers would talk with her, give a verbal and written warning then monitor the situation. If another member of staff decides this is power harassment or bullying in the workplace then you could be in serious shit as a company. Don’t let one bad attitude bring the company down.
Wow, there’s some toxic people in this thread alone. Hiding behind a shield of “professionalism” isn’t an excuse to act like an asshole especially at a small company which will be inherently more intimate than a mid-size or corporate one. That makes the interpersonal dynamics much more important to the function of a company. I understand why you would be concerned.
That said, it sounds as if you’ve already written her off before even giving her a chance. You have already labeled her toxic before even hearing her out, haven’t you? You seem very combative towards her as is. Read your post again and pay attention to all the loaded language you used and the judgements you have passed.
> It won’t work to talk her into changing her attitude.
It’s very possible she doesn’t mean to be the way you perceive her, it’s entirely possible her responses are friendly from her perspective or even very normal in general. You need to communicate with her, not criticize or attack her. Share what you wrote here with her, without all the loaded language and judgements. If at that point she shuts down, becomes indignant or her toxic behavior increases then you know you truly have a problem.
You have to be honest with yourself, do you just not like her? Can you not make peace with it and accept her as she is? If the answers are yes, she isn’t a fit for *your* team, let her go. There is a price to pay no matter which way you go.
So, a couple of thoughts as a people manager:
1-This is undesirable behavior but I would not classify it as “extremely toxic”.
2-There is a common archetype. I have worked with or managed several people like this and would reckon there’s at least one in every mid-to-large office.
What can you do about it? Thoughts:
* You do need to have a private talk with her. Be direct and have specific examples. Ask questions. Explain the types of behavior you are looking for. Don’t wait. Do it soon.
* Do you have a “values” statement? Also, do you have an incentive bonus, performance evaluation, and raises? One thing I used to do was use the company values as an adjustment factor with people that performed well but had some undesirable habits. E.g. purely on measurable metrics the staff might have a high evaluation, but because they did not exhibit behaviors in line with the values of the company I would point to that and rate them average. That average rating had a financial impact wrt raises and bonuses and the one or two times I did this, the strategy worked. Message received.
* Is this a contract employee? You could simply not renew, or, let her know during a discussion that you need to see a behavioral change.
On occasion -I work with a person like this right now- the employee doesn’t even realize how much of an impact they are having on the team. That’s why it’s better to have a direct discussion rather soon and explain your expectations.