BizSugar.com › Human Resources › How to deal with toxic employees without negatively affecting everyone else - The Business Journals

Sometimes managers avoid dealing with employee performance issues out of a concern that a direct conversation will become confrontational, complex or time consuming. Other managers worry about creating potential legal issues if they don’t have a company policy to stand behind.

To slice through the fear and complexity, I asked Alice Waagen, president and founder of Herndon, Va.-based Workforce Learning, to share her simple framework for dealing with underperforming employees. Her answers follow my questions, which are in bold.