How to Manage Bad Attitudes in the Workplace

There are plenty of rules. Written and unwritten, social, formal and hierarchical that govern over the workplace. One of the (usually) unwritten rules: avoid a negative attitude at work.

Most managers can name the person on their team whose mood sets the tone for everyone else. When that tone is negative, it spreads faster than almost anything else in a workplace, and it is one of the hardest things to raise in a conversation.

A negative attitude is rarely just a personality trait. More often, it is a signal that something else has gone wrong, whether that is workload, an unresolved disagreement, a difficult manager relationship or something happening outside work entirely. Understanding what sits underneath it is usually the difference between resolving it and losing a good employee.

Here, we’ll examine staff attitude and behaviour, what that means, some examples, and some methods showing you how to deal with difficult employees.

What is a negative attitude at work?

An attitude is a settled way of thinking about something. At work, a negative attitude shows up as consistent dissatisfaction, resistance or hostility towards the role, the team or the organisation. The important word is consistent. A negative attitude is a pattern rather than a moment, and it tends to affect how someone behaves towards colleagues as much as how they approach the work itself.

Why is a positive attitude important at work?**

Having a positive attitude at work can increase the long term likelihood of success at work. While it isn’t a fix for high-quality performance, a positive attitude means employers and employees alike can increase their ability to bounce back (resilience) from difficult situations.

Here are just some of the many benefits of having a positive attitude at work:

• A better bottom-line
• Increased resilience
• Efficient teamwork
• Increased confidence

The difference between a negative attitude and a bad day

Everyone has bad days. A lost client, a difficult customer, a delayed train and a missed deadline will put anyone in a poor mood, and a manager who treats each of those as an attitude problem will quickly lose the team's trust.

The distinction is duration and direction. A bad mood passes and stays largely with the person having it. A negative attitude persists over weeks and starts affecting other people's experience of coming to work.

Before you treat anything as an attitude problem, it is worth asking how long it has been going on and whether anything changed around the time it started.

What does a negative attitude look like?

Common signs include:

• Persistent lateness or a drift in reliability
• A noticeable drop in the standard of work, with a "that'll do" approach
• Rudeness, sarcasm or short responses to colleagues
• Blaming others, or refusing to take responsibility for mistakes
• Withdrawing from team activity and conversation
• Openly criticising decisions in front of others rather than raising concerns properly
• Resistance to anything new

How negative attitudes affect the rest of the team

The cost is bigger than most employers estimate. Acas research put the cost of workplace conflict to UK employers at £28.5 billion a year, or just over £1,000 per employee. That includes almost 485,000 people resigning and just under 900,000 taking time off because of conflict.

Conflict is also more common than most managers realise. Another Acas study found that 44% of working-age adults in Great Britain had experienced conflict at work in the previous 12 months, the highest level recorded in a survey of this kind. And sadly, almost a third said it was mainly or completely unresolved.

Left alone, a persistent negative attitude tends to produce:

• Lower morale across the team, not just for the individual
• Colleagues quietly absorbing extra work to avoid a confrontation
• Reduced willingness to share ideas or try new approaches
• Higher absence, as people find the environment draining
• Poorer customer experience
• Resignations, often from the people you least want to lose

Negative attitude at work examples

• Tardiness

• A ‘that’ll do’ approach

• Rudeness towards others

• Blame

• Disruption

• Showing a lack of responsibility

From just these quick examples, we’re sure you can think of people in your organisation that might fit into either category.

Effects of attitudes on the rest of the team

A positive attitude and hard work is great, but negativity can be a problem. Some effects of negative attitudes behaviour on everyone else include lower productivity, higher rates of absence, less team cohesion, frustration and low morale. It can also cause:

• Lacklustre performance
• Unwillingness to work collaboratively
• Dismal outlook
• Unwillingness to try new things
• Reduced energy levels
• Increased absences
• Depressive feelings
• Reduced quality of work
• Poor customer engagement
• Difficulty overcoming obstacles

What causes negative attitudes at work?

High workloads

The Health and Safety Executive reports that 964,000 workers suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25, with 22.1 million working days lost. The main causes workers cite are workload pressures such as tight deadlines and too much responsibility, followed by a lack of managerial support. Someone under sustained pressure will often become short tempered long before they say they are struggling.

The manager relationship

CIPD found that 49% of employers agree line managers can be a cause of conflict in their teams. That is worth sitting with before concluding the problem is entirely the employee.

Managers who have never been trained

Research by the Chartered Management Institute found that 82% of people who enter management positions have had no formal management or leadership training. It also found that only 27% of workers describe their manager as highly effective, and that half of workers with an ineffective manager plan to leave within 12 months.

Unresolved problems

Acas found that 19% of people experiencing conflict at work took no action at all about it. Nothing curdles into a negative attitude quite as reliably as a grievance nobody ever addressed.

Something outside work

Bereavement, illness, caring responsibilities, money worries and relationship breakdown all show up at work, and they rarely announce themselves.

How to manage a negative attitude at work

1. Listen before you conclude

Start with a private conversation and an open question rather than a judgement. "I've noticed things have felt different for you recently, how are you getting on?" gets you further than "your attitude has been a problem."

Not everyone knows how to ask for help. Some people express difficulty as irritation because it feels safer than admitting they are struggling.

2. Look at the workload and the role

Before anything else, check the obvious. Has the workload grown? Has someone left without being replaced? Has the role changed into something the person did not sign up for? These are the most common causes and the easiest to fix.

3. Address it early and specifically

Delay makes everything harder. Once a negative attitude has settled in, and the team has adjusted around it, it becomes far more difficult to shift. When you do raise it, be specific about behaviour rather than character. "You cut across Sam twice in Tuesday's meeting" is something a person can respond to. "You've got a bad attitude" is not, and it usually produces defensiveness rather than change.

4. Offer support, and mean it

Support might mean reducing the workload for a period, adjusting responsibilities, agreeing more flexible hours, or simply making sure the person knows about the confidential help available to them.

Bear in mind that many people will not discuss what is really going on with their line manager, whatever the relationship is like. Support that sits outside the management chain is often what actually gets used.

5. Look at the culture around the behaviour

If several people are disengaged, the issue is unlikely to be several individual attitudes. Look at how decisions get communicated, whether people can raise concerns safely, whether good work is noticed, and whether managers have the time and training to manage.

The ONS has found that management practice scores rise steadily with organisation size, and that smaller firms are notably less likely to use formal management training. For SMEs, this is less a criticism than an opportunity, because a small amount of manager development goes a long way.

6. Know when it becomes a conduct issue

Sometimes, after genuine support and clear conversations, behaviour does not change. Rudeness, disruption or undermining colleagues can be a conduct matter, and at that point you follow your disciplinary procedure properly. Keep it as the last step rather than the first, and make sure you can show what support was offered beforehand.

How an Employee Assistance Programme can help

Employees are often uncomfortable telling a manager that their work is being affected by stress, money problems or something happening at home. That silence is where negative attitudes tend to grow.

An Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) from Wisdom Wellbeing gives your people confidential access to a qualified counsellor 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without needing to go through their line manager. It gives them somewhere to work through what is actually going on. Our HR and management information line supports the other side of the conversation. Managers can talk through how to approach a difficult discussion before they have it, rather than calling for help once it has gone badly.

Conclusion

A negative attitude affects the person, the team and the organisation, and it almost always builds over time rather than appearing overnight. The most useful thing a manager can do is get curious before getting frustrated. Look at the workload, look at the relationship, look at what changed, and have the conversation early. Where the cause turns out to be something outside your control, make sure the person knows where confidential support is available. Where it turns out to be something inside your control, which is more often than most employers expect, you have found something you can actually fix.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a bad attitude at work?

A persistent pattern of behaviour that affects colleagues, such as rudeness, consistent negativity, refusing responsibility or undermining decisions in front of others. A single bad day is not a bad attitude.

How do I talk to an employee about their attitude?

Have the conversation privately, describe specific behaviour rather than character, ask an open question about how they are getting on, and listen before drawing conclusions.

Should HR be involved straight away?

Most situations are best handled by the line manager in the first instance. Involve HR where the behaviour may be a conduct or grievance matter, where it involves possible discrimination, or where the manager wants advice before proceeding.