Employee with a Bad Attitude: Is It Worth Keeping Them?
You’ve got a pharmacist who fills scripts faster than anyone on staff. Patients like them. The numbers are great. But every morning when they walk in, three other people quietly put their heads down and wait for the first complaint of the day.
You know exactly who I’m talking about.
The question isn’t whether they have a bad attitude — it’s what you’re going to do about it.
What a Bad Attitude Actually Costs You
One person’s negativity doesn’t stay contained. It spreads.
A team that’s walking on eggshells is a team that’s distracted, disengaged, and quietly updating their resumes.
The ripple effects are real:
- Lower team morale. Other employees pick up on toxic energy fast. If leadership doesn’t act, the message they take is: this is acceptable here.
- Reduced collaboration. People stop asking for help, stop sharing information, and start working around the problem instead of with the team.
- Higher turnover. Your best people — the ones with options — leave first. You’re not just losing one difficult employee. You’re losing the people they drove out.
Bad attitudes are a retention problem before they’re a performance problem. That’s the part that doesn’t show up on a productivity report until it’s too late.
How to Handle an Employee with a Bad Attitude: Three Questions First
Before you escalate or write anyone up, work through these:
Question #1: Is it actually affecting the team — or just annoying you?
There’s a difference between an employee who’s blunt and one who’s genuinely toxic.
Some personalities read as difficult and are secretly beloved by patients and coworkers. Some are openly charming and quietly brutal to morale.
Look at the data. Are conflicts increasing? Is the team pulling away from this person? Are good employees starting to disengage? Gut feelings matter, but patterns matter more.
Question #2: Do they know there’s a problem?
This is the question managers hate, because the answer is sometimes no.
Some employees genuinely don’t know how they’re landing. They think they’re being direct. They think they’re being funny. They have no idea three people have already complained about them in the break room.
Have you had an actual conversation — not a hint, not a written warning, not a “just wanted to check in” — where you named the behavior and described the impact?
If the answer is no, that’s your next step. Not termination. Not a formal write-up. A real conversation.
Question #3: Is something else going on?
A bad attitude is often a symptom. Burnout. Personal problems. A mismatch between the role they’re in and the one they thought they were getting.
Before you decide they’re just difficult, ask. Not “everything okay?” Something like: “I’ve noticed you seem frustrated lately. I want to understand what’s going on before we talk about how things are landing with the rest of the team.”
You might not fix it. But you’ll know what you’re actually dealing with.
This tracks with what we see on the staffing side too. When a client calls with an attitude complaint, our recruiters aren’t just taking notes — they’re asking how long it’s been going on, how often, and for specific situations.
More often than not, says ASG Pharmacy market coordinator Kylen Krupa, what looks like a bad attitude has something underneath it.
“Most of the time people are struggling with something within their own lives,” she says. “That’s actually why we’re able to help them improve more often than not.”
Her rough estimate: about 70% of attitude complaints are solvable once both sides of the story are on the table.
How to Have the Conversation
Most managers wait too long. By the time they sit down, they’ve been cataloging grievances for months, and the employee has no idea anything was wrong. That’s a setup for defensiveness on their end and frustration on yours.
Do it early. Keep it specific.
Don’t say: “Your attitude has been really negative lately.”
Say: “Last Tuesday during the shift change, the way you responded to Marcus’s question shut down the conversation. A few people on the team have noticed a pattern. I want to address it directly.”
Specific behavior. Specific impact. No ambiguity about what needs to change.
Then give them a chance to respond. Sometimes what comes back is the actual problem.
When to Write Up — and When to Let Go
If you’ve had the conversation, documented the pattern, and nothing’s changed — or the behavior got worse after feedback — you have your answer.
Worth noting: in a pharmacy setting, not every attitude issue is a personality problem. Kylen has seen complaints that traced back to personality conflicts, mismatched training styles, and communication breakdowns between staff — situations where the environment was at least part of the equation.
That doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it does change how you approach the fix.
A few markers that it’s time to escalate:
- The behavior is affecting patient care or compliance (in pharmacy, this isn’t a soft issue — it’s a serious one)
- Other team members have raised formal concerns
- You’ve had documented conversations with no improvement
- The negativity is directed at specific people in a way that creates a hostile environment
Writing someone up for a bad attitude alone is tricky from an HR standpoint. Tie it to behavior and impact, not personality. “Created a disruptive dynamic during shift change on three separate occasions” is documentable. “Has a bad attitude” is not.
Strategies That Actually Work (and a Few That Don’t)
Do:
- Set a clear, written improvement plan with specific behavior expectations and a timeline
- Schedule regular check-ins so they know you’re watching — not as surveillance, but as accountability
- Recognize improvement when you see it. People respond to what gets acknowledged.
Don’t:
- Avoid the conversation hoping it’ll get better on its own (it won’t)
- Make it about personality (“you’re just a negative person”)
- Let it drag for months because you don’t want the conflict
A Note on Pharmacy Specifically
If you’re managing pharmacy staff, there’s one pattern worth knowing: attitude issues show up more frequently in techs than pharmacists, and more often in retail than specialty settings.
That’s not a knock on retail techs; it’s simply a reflection of the environment. High volume, time pressure, constant patient interaction, and staffing gaps create conditions where even solid employees can start to crack.
It’s also why screening for attitude before a placement matters as much as screening for credentials. When ASG places pharmacy staff, our recruiters are already trying to get to the root of what drives a candidate, because the people who struggle most are often dealing with something outside of work that eventually follows them in.
If you’re working with a staffing partner and attitude issues keep surfacing after placement, that’s worth a conversation. A good partner isn’t just filling shifts — they’re paying attention.
The Bottom Line
Good employees with bad attitudes are a real management challenge, and the answer isn’t always to keep them or cut them loose. It’s to act early, be specific, and let the response to feedback tell you what you’re working with.
If they adjust, great. You kept someone worth keeping.
If they don’t, you’ve documented your process, protected your team, and given yourself the information you needed to make the call.
Either way, you’re not stuck.
Need Help Building A Pharmacy Team That Performs And Gels?
ASG Pharmacy staffs pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who show up ready to contribute to the work and the culture. Learn more about our staffing services, or let’s chat about it.
FAQ: Handling Employees with Bad Attitudes
How do I handle an employee with a bad attitude without making things worse?
Keep it specific and private. Focus on behavior and impact, not character. “Here’s what I observed, here’s how it landed, here’s what I need to see change” is a conversation. “You have an attitude problem” is an accusation.
Can you fire someone just for having a bad attitude?
Practically, yes — most pharmacy employment is at-will. Strategically, document behavior and impact rather than personality. It protects you legally and makes the termination cleaner if you get there.
What if the employee denies everything?
Stick to specifics. If you’ve documented incidents, walk through them. Denial is common in early conversations. The goal isn’t to win the argument — it’s to put the expectation on record and give them a clear path forward.
How do you evaluate an employee with a bad attitude fairly?
Separate performance from behavior. Strong clinical skills and poor professional conduct can both be true. Evaluate both honestly, document both, and don’t let good performance excuse behavior that’s damaging the team.
What questions should I ask an employee with a bad attitude?
Open-ended questions get more useful information than yes/no ones. Some of the most useful to ask:
- “Is there something about this role that isn’t working for you right now?”
- “How do you think that interaction landed with the rest of the team?”
- “What would make this environment work better for you?”
How do I manage staff with a bad attitude when it’s affecting patient care?
That changes the urgency level significantly. In a pharmacy setting, an attitude that bleeds into patient interactions or clinical communication is a culture issue and risk issue. Document it, loop in HR, and treat it with the same seriousness you’d give any compliance concern.
