Handling an Insubordinate Worker

April 13, 2006

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Your knee-jerk reaction to an insubordinate employee may be to lose your temper, to become abusive in return, or to terminate the employee immediately. While it's hard to control your emotions during a stressful situation like this, you must. Termination may, in fact, be the appropriate response to an insubordinate employee, but don't fire the employee on the spot. If termination is appropriate, it will still be clearly appropriate after you've cooled off. Being abusive in return is never appropriate.

Although termination may be considered in the most serious situations, counseling or a progressive step discipline program is probably the most appropriate vehicle for disciplining an insubordinate employee. Your discipline policy should give you room to maneuver, so you can consider the following:

Does an employee's past record indicate an insubordinate attitude? If not, perhaps a warning should be used the first time. If the employee has a history of this kind of behavior, stricter sanctions should be considered.
Is the discipline appropriate and related to the severity of the conduct? If the conduct is serious, a light or token punishment will not deter the employee — and other employees — from exhibiting this kind of behavior. On the other hand, if an employee is punished severely for a minor infraction, the purpose of the discipline could backfire and make the employee's attitude and morale even worse.