There comes a point or two in each of our careers where we have to exercise our patience and handle difficult coworkers who are blissfully unaware of boundaries. Some of the coworkers are merely unaware that they are crossing any lines, while others are intentionally deceitful for reasons of their own. When you ask your friends and colleagues how to deal with annoying coworkers, ignoring them is often seen as the best strategy, but there’s only so much energy you can invest in turning a blind eye to unpleasant behavior.
When it comes to these annoying coworkers, dedicated strategies and policies are necessary to maintain your peace within the organization without disrupting your role or position.
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Deftly Handling Difficult Coworkers Is Essential for A Good Work Experience
If you thought you were alone in your struggles with facing rude and unpleasant coworkers, you should know that you’re not alone. A KickResume survey found that 85% of its respondents had experience working with an annoying coworker and 58% found it significantly impacted their productivity. Annoying coworkers aren’t just distracting but their actions can very quickly affect the atmosphere at work and slow down all the work that others are trying to get done.
Being “difficult” or “annoying” can mean different things for each employee, but what all of these interpretations have in common is that the coworker is disruptive. Explaining the top 5 offenders or categories of difficult coworkers, Kicresume found that “credit stealers,” those who steal ownership of other people’s work, were found to be the most bothersome office personality.
This category was followed by micromanagers who are overcontrolling and constantly around, chronic complainers who take issue with everything, personal space intruders who have no concept of boundaries, and lunch thieves who steal your meal and your trust in one fell swoop.
These listed characteristics don’t encompass each and every annoying behavior you might have faced in the workplace, but they represent some of the most annoying tendencies highlighted by the survey. The difficult coworkers in your life may display one or two distinct characteristics from this list, but there are the ultimate final bosses that bring all these qualities together to intrude on your work experience.
It’s true that 53% of surveyed employees found remote work reduces such annoying behaviors and makes it easier to handle a difficult coworker, but not everyone is in a position to switch to remote work due to a troublesome colleague. Even if they could switch to remote work, they would still need to learn how to deal with annoying coworkers.
This is because 44% of employees stated that written communication like emails and Slack messages from these colleagues were still a significant source of annoyance for them. Phone calls and video calls further assured them of being permanently stuck with these coworkers. As much as ignoring the problem might sound like the better strategy to avoid confrontation, it is important to face it straight on and develop your own strategies for dealing with an annoying coworker.
How to Deal with Annoying Coworkers
When it comes to handling difficult coworkers, a majority of us know we need to address the problem directly but calmly, but most of us wait for it to fester until we hit the breaking point. This results in an outburst of anger or passive-aggressive behavior most of the time, further affecting the work environment and the productivity of everyone involved.
According to the numbers, only 12% of workers actually report disruptive behavior to their supervisors and HR teams. The fear of being labeled a “tattletale” and making the problem worse by complaining is understandable, but within a work setting, it’s often better to get an additional person involved to monitor the situation. Let’s look at how you can deal with annoying coworkers at your organization.
Understand What about the Coworker Is Annoying You
We’re all human and sometimes our own bad mood is triggered by the smallest of actions from another person. Be clear about whether there is something truly annoying or difficult about your coworker’s behavior or you’re just a little more sensitive than usual. Also, take stock of whether this behavior has occurred repeatedly or is just one incident that may not be indicative of a problem.
Understand Your Response to the Situation So Far
It’s hardly fair to complain to HR when you’ve been egging on poor behavior yourself. Reflect on how you’ve dealt with the problem so far and be sure to evaluate if you’ve ever indicated that such behavior was appropriate. If you regularly gossip with your coworkers about others at the office or ask them personal questions, you can’t be mad at them for being intrusive. As you’ve previously indicated you’re comfortable discussing personal matters at work, they will be encouraged to do the same.
Track the Behavior That You Find Difficult to Handle
When you take matters to HR, it helps to have a clear explanation of what the problem is and why it is bothering you. The HR team cannot intervene based exclusively on personal opinions and feelings, so if you have an explanation of what the problem is, when it occurred, and how it impedes your productivity, you’ll be able to explain your situation more easily.
Self-Regulate Your Response to the Situation
Before you escalate matters to supervisors, assess whether you can handle the situation yourself. If it’s a problem of chatty coworkers, maybe you can resolve the issue by closing the door to your cabin or putting some headphones on. With some simple but creative solutions, you might find the problem was never as big as it felt initially.
For issues of a bigger scale such as someone stealing credit for your work, it might be hard to handle it yourself. Still, it’s best to approach the situation with a calm and collected attitude than an emotional one.
Even if you can’t find an easy solution, work on being calm at work. Practice different breathing and relaxation techniques to ensure you do not get riled up at work, regardless of how the other person behaves. With difficult coworkers, the best advice is to maintain your cool no matter how egregious their offenses are—it’s only then you’ll be able to plan your next step.
Discuss the Problem with the Coworker
If you want to address the problem directly with the coworker who has caused you distress, then you are free to do that as well. When it comes to handling annoying coworkers, the best strategies focus on ensuring that you never act offensively to address their behavior. You must remain polite and govern your own words. The point is to reach a peaceful middle ground where you can both work in your own way, not to hurt the other into submission.
If a coworker has sent a flaming email or uses generally inappropriate language, politely respond and tell them you would prefer if they didn’t. If the difficult coworker is constantly micromanaging your work, politely ask if you could share your progress with them periodically when you finish tasks rather than being interrupted between them. You can also ask the coworker if there are things they would prefer you did differently as well.
Making the initial request over email or at least creating an electronic record of requesting a meeting to discuss the matter is helpful in the long run.
Avoid Extreme Measures Like Public Humiliation
Do not turn to toxic measures like humiliating the coworker publicly or isolating them from everyone to “teach them a lesson.” this turns you into a bigger bad guy than the coworker who just complained a lot or didn’t know how to use technology and constantly interrupted your work with questions.
You might find it working in the short term, but such strategies will change how other coworkers look at you and most will soon find it risky to be around you in case you decide to redirect your ire at them.
If you think a problem goes beyond your capacity to handle it, especially with more serious problematic behaviors like harassment or theft, get the management involved. Never stoop to becoming the toxic coworker.
Report Your Concerns to HR
The final bit of advice we have for dealing with difficult coworkers is to get HR involved in the situation. Having HR present to mediate the conversation can be a very helpful way to get your coworker to commit to the changes you both discuss together. Even if you don’t think that the HR team will do anything about the issue, registering a complaint will ensure there’s a record of your concerns in an official space.
As unpleasant as it is to be the one to complain, it is often better to establish some clear ground rules about behaviors you are not comfortable with.
Handling difficult coworkers isn’t child’s play so when you do have to try and reign in a situation that’s getting worse, assess what resources you have at your disposal, what you can do to minimize the problem, and what support you can find in this mission. Don’t let the behaviors of another worker change who you are and how you respond.