The Lazy Co-Worker (and what to do about them)

Working with someone who is lazy can be incredibly frustrating and challenging. A lazy colleague who doesn’t fulfill their responsibilities is hard to work with and their poor work ethic can influence the entire team as well as make it hard for others to fulfill their roles and responsibilities with excellence. The talkative coworker never shuts up, the negative co-worker saps your strength, and the lazy co-worker just irritates you to the core.

So what do you do if you have to work alongside a lazy person?

Here’s 5 things you can try:

1. Stay focused.

Don’t allow the lazy co-worker to distract you. Don’t waste your precious time focusing on all the things they are not doing. Focus on your own work and doing it well.

2. Get your facts straight.

Sometimes we can make wrong assumptions about other people’s behaviour. Everyone has their own work style and perhaps the ‘lazy’ person just goes about their tasks differently to you. Don’t focus too much on their process for getting things done but rather on their performance.

3. Ask yourself: Ignore or confront?

If the lazy co-worker doesn’t really affect you and your work (even though their laziness drives you crazy) then you could just ignore them. Yes, ignore them. Eventually their laziness is going to catch up with them. However, if their poor work ethic directly affects you, then you need to talk to them and confront them and have the difficult conversation.

4. Don’t tell tales, tattle or dob on them to your boss.

There is a big difference between talking to your boss about the co-worker you are having these challenges with and ‘dobbing them in’. And here is the important thing: involve your boss only AFTER you have spoken to them directly. Talk to the co-worker first before you take it to the next authority level. And if you do talk to your boss, once again make sure you get your facts correct.

5. Keep taking charge of your attitude.

Regardless of just how lazy your co-worker is, your attitude is still your responsibility. Don’t let their poor work ethic influence your good attitude. Otherwise, you’ll soon become one of those negative co-workers. And that’s no help to anybody.

This week’s assignment:

Take charge of your own attitude first. Identify if you actually need to talk to the co-worker or whether you can just ignore them. And if you do need to confront, then get your facts straight, prepare for the conversation, and then have it.

Enjoy the journey,

And more importantly,

Enjoy the moments.

🙂

Megan