Dealing with ‘free-rider’ employees

One expert has told HR Leader about ways to deal with employees who try to take advantage of their colleagues and the workplace while doing the bare minimum.

In a recent HR Leader live stream, Peter Berry (pictured), managing director at Peter Berry Consultancy, reflected on what he termed “free-rider” employees and the impacts that they can have on businesses, as well as the ways that senior leadership can play a role in influencing culture and engagement to manage these impacts.

Hard to spot

Berry described free riders as employees who do the bare minimum to stay on payroll, fly below the radar, and do not display toxic behaviour, which makes them “a little bit tricky to catch quickly”.

“They might even be decent people that have made a decision just to cruise for whatever that is,” Berry said.

Despite their non-toxic behaviour, Berry noted that these colleagues are unpopular with their colleagues, leave behind mistakes for others to clean up, and take a laid-back approach to their employment – through behaviours such as taking longer lunch breaks than they should.

These workers tend not to call attention to themselves as they “free ride” – taking advantage of both the organisation and their colleagues, Berry said.

He noted that free riders tend to build a clique around them, drawing in a network of like-minded negative people.

“We’ve got to be onto those people in a quick and timely manner,” Berry said.

Nipping it in the bud

To deal with this, Berry highlighted research conducted by his consultancy, which revealed that leaders have a 50 to 70 per cent impact on the team, saying that “people don’t quit the job, they quit their manager”.

For Berry, there are two categories of HR: those who can handle conflict and situations, getting onto things in a timely manner, and “others that may be too patient, too kind, too generous and playing the waiting game, not trying to get it wrong. There’s a fear of being decisive and acting in a timely manner.”

Berry noted that the best HR practitioners take people and culture seriously into their business plan, which is “owned by all of the executives on the senior leadership team, not just HR”. Further, Berry stressed that employee engagement should also be a key performance indicator for the company’s business plan.

He added that, as a collective, the whole leadership cohort must step in to set an example to emphasise high engagement and positivity to encourage employees to support the purpose and the utility of the company’s goods and services.

Berry said: “There is a battle for hearts and minds going on out there, and the good guys have to win.”