Taming the tortoise

A US company with religious links believes variety is not the spice of office life.

Do you have any of these in your office: a Tortoise, a Worrywart, an Insubordinate Subordinate, an Early Retiree? Or maybe your team includes Blameless Bob, a Thumb Twiddler or someone with an Amy Attitude? Or perhaps you work alongside a Clock-Watcher, have to listen to a Whiner, clash with an Antagonist or just spend lots of time with a Hand-Holder?

Then maybe you need to attend a series of one-day seminars called "Dealing Effectively With Unacceptable Employee Behaviour". This rather startlingly titled series of conferences is taking place across the UK this summer, organised by a US company called SkillPath Seminars.

Robb Garr, the president of SkillPath, has identified 11 different types of "unacceptable" behaviour. For example, the Tortoise "shows up late or not at all", the Early Retiree "has been around a while and is beginning to practise at-work retirement", and the Worrywart "has personal problems that infringe on the working day". "The cost of unsatisfactory job performance is staggering," says Mr Garr. "Plus it's contagious. If you ignore the problem, sub-standard behaviour can become standard behaviour."

Mr Garr says he can identify 15 warning signs that point to unacceptable behaviour. His way of dealing with the problems range from opening a dialogue with a problem employee, to showing bosses how to re-assign staff or sack them, without getting caught up in wrongful dismissal claims.

SkillPath claims to be one of the fastest-growing training organisations in the US, having trained at all of the Fortune 500 companies. It is also in partnership with the wonderfully named Graceland University, a 108-year-old college at Lamini in Iowa.

Graceland has no links with Elvis Presley but was founded by the Community of Christ, a religious movement which was originally part of the Mormons but split from them in the 19th century after disagreement on the rights and wrongs of polygamy.

The first of SkillPath's 32 seminars take place in Exeter on 2 June.