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What Went Wrong? A Case Study in Employee-Manager Miscommunication
In this video, Employment Partner Dipti Shah examines a real-life breakdown in the employee-manager relationship, through a WhatsApp thread. With over 25 years of experience advising both businesses and individuals, Dipti has seen how common oversights such as insufficient training and inadequate support for managers, can escalate into avoidable conflict. In this case study, she dissects what went wrong at each stage of a workplace conversation and outlines what should have happened to preserve a productive and respectful working relationship.
The Retention Crisis
In the UK, nearly one in four workers is planning to quit in 2025. Staff retention is becoming an increasingly urgent issue, with workplace trends like “Revenge Quitting” and “Quiet Quitting” taking their toll on morale and continuity. The financial impact is significant: the average cost of turnover for an employee earning £25,000 or more £30,614, according to Oxford Economics. Poor management plays a central role in this trend. When employees have both a great manager and a great leader, their commitment to stay rises to 94%. But that figure drops sharply, to 35%, with a good manager and poor leader, and to just 19% when both leadership and management are lacking.
Case Study: What Went Wrong?
In the featured case study, a manager asked an employee to reschedule their annual leave at the last minute to attend a client meeting. The employee offered a compromise by suggesting they dial in remotely during their holiday, but the manager deemed this insufficient. What followed was a prolonged back-and-forth, culminating in the manager threatening repercussions for the employee’s career. This situation underscores the pressures that managers themselves face, but also highlights the importance of managing client expectations and ensuring clear communication throughout all levels of the business. Without proper guidance, even well-meaning managers can make decisions that damage trust and morale.
Key Takeaways
Managers need just as much support as the teams they lead. To prevent breakdowns like this one, it is essential that newly promoted managers receive thorough training, both on the responsibilities of their new role and on how company policies should inform their management style. Employees are entitled to disconnect during their annual leave, and penalising them for exercising this right is unacceptable. Ultimately, a well-supported manager is far more likely to foster a positive, engaged, and committed team.
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Managing Toxic Behaviour in the Workplace
Toxic employees in the workplace present a unique threat to businesses. Their behaviour pervades team dynamics, undermines the authority of managers, the efficiency of business operations and the wellbeing of fellow employees.
Identifying Common Types of Toxic Behaviour
Three common types of toxic behaviour include:
- The Complainer: This employee looks to find fault in almost every situation, spreads their negative energy amongst the team and dampens team morale.
- The Narcissist: This employee has an inflated sense of self-importance, they are overconfident, lack empathy and never take accountability or responsibility often deflecting from their own underperformance by pointing out other people’s mistakes.
- The Aggravator: This type of employee belittles, humiliates and insults others. They have a tendency to spread misinformation, gaslight and manipulate others. They may exclude people from meetings and projects under the guise of professionalism and their behaviour is often targeted towards a specific or small number of individuals.
The Consequences of Inaction
When managers fail to address such conduct swiftly and visibly, they risk appearing ineffective or inconsistent, further encouraging disruptive behaviour and disempowering those in leadership roles.
The Cultural Impact of Toxicity
Toxic behaviour is also a cultural contaminant as it spreads silently through gossip, cliques, and negativity, derailing strategic priorities. Collaboration between individuals and teams suffers over time, high-performing employees may disengage or exit altogether, leaving a vacuum filled with underperformance.
Preserving Trust and Confidence
In every employment relationship, there is an implied duty of ‘mutual trust and confidence.’ When there is a lack of early management intervention to tackle disruptive behaviour, employees may feel frustration and resentment resulting in disengagement or even resignation (which may itself, give rise to a claim of constructive dismissal).
Health, Wellbeing, and Legal Risks
A failure to tackle toxic behaviour could also amount to co-workers suffering heightened stress and anxiety leading to persistent or long-term sickness absences which could amount to a breach of the duty to provide a safe working environment.
As uncomfortable as it might be, employers must act swiftly to tackle disruptive behaviour remembering to follow the ACAS code of practice, acting consistently and proportionately in each case.
Considering Mental Health and Reasonable Adjustments
Where a mental health condition or disability may be a factor in the employee’s behaviour, reasonable adjustments must be considered. However, persistent inappropriate behaviour may justify formal warnings or dismissal if it undermined organisational harmony.
Why Early Intervention Matters
Toxic behaviour erodes more than morale – it compromises authority, productivity and the retention of valuable employees. Early management of such behaviour is essential to maintain a happy and productive workforce.
This article was published in the July/August 2025 edition of London Business Matters.
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Contemplating Redundancies as a Consequence of the Budget?
This article was published in the January/February 2025 edition of London Business Matters.
The October 2024 Budget has seen businesses forced to weigh up the prospect of increasing employee costs following a rise in national insurance tax and paying higher minimum wages. A survey of recruiters by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), reports that vacancies in the market have fallen at their fastest pace in four years. Simultaneously, we have seen an increase in enquiries from employers considering reducing headcount.
Contemplating Redundancies
If your business is contemplating reducing staff, it is important to demonstrate a genuine redundancy situation that meets the legal definition. This is:
- the business is closing or has already closed;
- there is a change in the types or number of roles needed to do certain work; or
- there is a change in location.
Once a genuine redundancy is identified, it is important to ensure that a fair process is followed to avoid a claim for unfair dismissal. Even for those employees who do not have the requisite 2 years’ service to bring such a claim, employers want to avoid any allegation of discrimination where, for example, it is suggested that prejudicial selection criteria was used to select and employee for redundancy.
As a minimum, a fair process requires a ‘genuine and meaningful’ consultation take place with those employees identified as ‘at risk’ to discuss the reasons for the proposed redundancies, the skills and experience needed going forward and the criteria used for selection. The consultation should include ways in which redundancy might be avoided, such as applications from staff to work flexibly on job shares or on reduced hours or, reducing or prohibiting non-contractual overtime. If any alternative options are not viable, then it is important to explain why this is the case. Employers should consider if any ‘suitable alternative work’ is available, engaging and inviting suggestions from the ‘at risk’ employees.
While there is no strict timeframe within which consultations should be carried out (except in redundancies of 20 or more employees which is beyond the scope of this article), these should take place over a sufficient period to demonstrate a fair and meaningful process.
Redundancies are difficult for everyone involved and a fair and transparent process can avoid ambiguity for employees and the potential of legal claims for employers.
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