I’m a business consultant and speaker. Not a lawyer. Not an accountant. Not a social worker. However, I’m a very compassionate person who time-and-time again is asked by clients to deal with entitled employees who were once stars within the organization. So, my advice is practical and not labor-law driven. My guidance is geared toward forcing employees out of denial and choosing what road they’re going to follow. I have to brag that my success rate is about 50 percent, with some staying and some leaving.
So how do star employees go bad? That’s a complicated question but I think it ultimately boils down to entitled employees believing their own propaganda and denial. I also think such employees may tend to be sacred cows within the organization and rarely are initial performance issues nipped in the bud. Instead, such issues build over a period of time and the lack of attention allows the problem to fester and grow.