Firing your worst employee is worth more than twice as much as hiring a superstar, claims new Harvard research. “While a top 1% worker might return $5,303 in cost savings to a company through increased output, avoiding a toxic hire will net an estimated $12,489.” And those figures don’t even include the costs incurred if hiring or tolerating a jerk results in litigation or a regulatory penalty. According to the study, toxic people drive other employees to leave an organization faster and more frequently, which generates huge turnover and training costs, and they diminish the productivity of everyone around them. If you want to maximize your team’s performance, you should probably make sure you’ve eliminated the worst performers before you go on the hunt for new talent. Ignoring productive but destructive bullies is a surefire way to severely dent your team’s overall performance.

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