How we stopped “brilliant jerks” from spoiling our culture

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Every company wants high-performing employees. But what if some of your most valued team members churn out good work but make their colleagues miserable? What if senior leadership has no clue who these bullies are or how badly they’re hurting culture? At Walker Advertising, we rethought our approach to “brilliant jerks.” Here’s how we developed a new system for how to spot them, quantify their harm, and make our company a better place to work.

The problem: Brilliant jerks erode culture 

A brilliant jerk is a skilled employee who’s difficult to work with. Direct supervisors and leadership may sing their praises. But behind closed doors, they can wreak havoc. Why?

• They’re innovation killers: If employees are constantly afraid of getting yelled at, degraded, or shamed at meetings, they won’t come forward with their best ideas. 

• They repel talent: Team members who feel disrespected will look for a new employer.

• They tank productivity: Workplace bullies can make their co-workers “quiet quit” and feel both disengaged and less creative.

• They impact the bottom line: When brilliant jerks negatively impact other employees, it’s safe to assume your employee ROI also takes a hit.

After dealing with a difficult, high-ranking colleague at a past company, I approached the board to address the issue. They asked if I could measure it, but I didn’t have the data to back it up. 

The solution: Calculating the true cost of culture-killers

While chewing on this problem in my role at Walker, I asked Rippling account managers at a pop-up event in DC if we could calculate the potential costs of employees who damage culture. Turns out, we could. 

With Rippling Performance Management, we set up workflows that not only helped us discover the brilliant jerks in our midst, but also calculate their impact on our bottom line. Here’s how.

Step 1: Gather performance review data

During our performance review cycles, employees rate themselves (self review) in addition to getting performance scores from their supervisors (upward review), peers (peer review), and direct reports (downward review) using a quantifiable question. A potential brilliant jerk would give themselves positive scores and get good marks from bosses, but low ratings from colleagues and direct reports. 

Step 2: Build a report

Manually tracking these three different scores every review cycle across our 300 employees would take countless hours we didn’t have. With Rippling, we set up a report that calculates whether or not an employee could potentially be a brilliant jerk. If the self-review and upward reviews are high, but the peer review is low, the report generates a “True” rating. 

Step 3: Calculate the cost

Once you figure out which team members meet the brilliant jerk criteria, and which employees work for those people, you can pull in compensation data to figure out the financial impact on your business. Assuming the direct reports of a brilliant jerk supervisor are 50% less engaged at work, you can cut their salaries in half and then add those totals up to estimate your productivity losses. 

For instance, under this formula, a brilliant jerk who manages three people all making $100,000 per year would cost the company $150,000. 

The impact

Rippling’s reporting features transformed how we identify, quantify, and deal with workplace bullies. Now, we can:

Prove the business case for a workplace detox

To test the formula, I pretended I was a  brilliant jerk. Using Rippling’s Performance Management tool, my manager and I both gave myself high ratings, and my peers and direct reports gave me poor ratings. We then ran our brilliant jerk report in Rippling, and due to the 50% reduction in productivity for impacted employees, we found I’d cost Walker Advertising $240,000. I’m just one employee out of 300 — the real impact could be much larger.

Proving what’s at stake gave me a seat at the table with leadership. We give them a concrete number to say, “hey, this is the loss that you're taking.” It's not nebulous. It's not invisible. It's something real. 

Build a culture of trust and accountability 

Now that we can prove the existence and harm of brilliant jerks, we can resolve workplace bullying before it gets out of hand. Since Rippling automatically flags employees who meet the criteria, we can give constructive feedback, hash out improvement plans, and, if all else fails, let toxic colleagues go. Now, employees know that when they’re honest about threats to their psychological safety, we’ll do something about it. 

Boost engagement

Gaining our talent’s trust made our workforce more engaged. We’re seeing higher employer net promoter scores, lower turnover, and a bigger recruiting pipeline full of candidates who want to work for a company that cares about employee wellbeing. 

Our prized people stay. Our culture killers leave. And stellar talent wants to join. 

Want to get these insights for your company? Reach out to your Rippling Account Manager to get started on this report.