Lazy coworkers are a dime a dozen in various fields and industries. I can think of many times when I’ve worked alongside someone and raised my brows at the unwillingness to work at work. While there are times I have been the lazy coworker (we all have our days, right?!), there is a difference between an off day and a habit of being lazy at work. Don’t be the lazy coworker, friends.
If you have a lazy coworker, you likely know what their day looks like. Maybe you’re unsure if someone qualifies as lazy. Let’s start there and define what a lazy coworker might do (or not do).
What Qualifies as a Lazy Coworker?
When a hardworking coworker comes back from a vacation and struggles to get moving the first day or two back, do they count as a lazy coworker? Or, are they lazy when an employee is up all night with a sick child and cannot put in the work they usually do? People can be lazy occasionally and not really count as lazy coworkers.
However, if someone has an excuse every day of the week (or even a few days a week), they might be a lazy coworker. A lazy coworker relies on others to get their own work done in an unhealthy way. Take a look at several of the common signs of a lazy coworker.
Signs of a Lazy Coworker
There are many signs of a lazy coworker – and they might differ from industry to industry. Knowing this, some are common in all fields. Let’s dig a little deeper into the apparent signs of a lazy coworker.
Never in their Work Space
Imagine working with someone always away from their desk or in their office. If they don’t have a desk or office, they just aren’t where they should be. Are they in the bathroom again? Chatting at the water cooler? Are they laughing with another coworker across the room? When employees spend little time in their workspace, they likely aren’t getting as much work done as they should.
Rarely Work their Full Scheduled Hours
A lazy coworker tends to arrive late, leave early, and take a long lunch. If they are supposed to work a full 8-hour day but never quite make it to 8 hours, you have a significant sign that laziness is present. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances – some workers have to leave early to pick up their children and work a few hours over the weekend.
Despite the exceptions, an employee unable to work the required hours is typically a lazy coworker.
Another Coffee Break?!
Breaks are essential in the workplace, and I’m not suggesting otherwise. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as too many breaks. What would your productivity look like if you went to make a new coffee every 30 minutes? A coffee break might take just 5 minutes, but when you tally the added bathroom breaks and the time it would take to refocus on the work, there’s a lot of missed work time.
Take breaks as needed, but don’t be a lazy coworker.
Over Delegating Tasks
When someone has ten tasks and delegates 9 of them, they’re likely a lazy coworker! Unless that one task is enormous and truly time-consuming, it is highly probable that they don’t want to work. Delegating can be an essential component of leadership – but it’s a sign of laziness when many of the tasks are handed off to others.
Missed Deadlines
Deadlines exist for a reason. While it is important to remember that life gets in the way sometimes, repeated misses indicate a deeper issue. When deadlines are ignored, forgotten, or put off, the employee likely doesn’t want to do the work. This is a lazy coworker.
Complainer Central
Have you ever had a coworker that complained about everything? The work, the deadline, the expectations, the team, the hours, and the list goes on. When someone complains about everything relating to their job, they likely don’t want to do the work associated with it. Lazy coworkers complain about things because they hate doing the job.
Busy-Work Focused
This kind of lazy coworker is a little more challenging to identify because they look busy. However, the critical work gets passed over for trivial or simple tasks. They clean the break room instead of making sales calls. Or they organize the filing cabinet instead of finding new leads.
These people aren’t afraid of all work – just the big, daunting tasks associated with their position. Just because they are moving and doing something doesn’t change their lazy coworker status.
What Should You Do About a Lazy Coworker?
It can seem intimidating to approach a lazy coworker situation. Are you going to make things awkward in the office if you speak up? Are you going to overwork yourself if you keep picking up the slack? What is the best course of action when a lazy coworker is in your organization?
1. Talk to The Lazy Coworker: Clarify Expectations
Have you ever had an honest conversation about a coworker’s laziness? There might be something going on in their life that you have no idea about. I’m not saying we should accept daily laziness when someone is going through a long-term hard time, but it is vital to consider an empathetic response.
Look at this as an example: Bill is going through a divorce. His wife left him, and he doesn’t feel the drive to succeed anymore. In this scenario, we can empathize with Bill but still have an honest conversation with him regarding expectations. Of course, he would likely struggle to get back into things at work for a period of time, and an empathetic leader should have grace. But if Bill were to slack off for several months, there’s a bigger problem at hand.
Does the lazy coworker need to seek out help with his mental state? Do they need a friend to talk to? There are ways to encourage performance improvement when times are tough.
Whether there is a legitimate reason for being lazy or not, expectations must be clarified in a clear conversation. Don’t beat around the bush. In an attempt to be extra kind, leaders can muddle the expectations. Muddled expectations are not kind, friends. Be kind by being straightforward.
2. Always Be Professional
It can be challenging to approach a lazy coworker when you’ve been the one picking up the slack. You had to work late and miss your kid’s soccer game, or maybe you haven’t had a real lunch break in weeks because you’re adding additional tasks to your workload. When you’ve got these things on your mind, it is possible you want to berate someone for dropping the ball.
Don’t.
You have to remain professional, or you could wind up in even more trouble than the lazy coworker might! Don’t get fired over someone else’s slack. If you have to take on too much work because of a lazy coworker, approach them professionally.
“I’m taking on responsibilities outside of my purview. What do you need to accomplish these tasks on time?”
3. Empathy Matters
Empathy can go so far. Unfortunately, there’s a common misconception out there that says an empathetic person is someone who gets walked all over. Empathy doesn’t mean you let people take advantage of you. It means you feel for them as though you were experiencing the same things.
By being empathetic, you’re saying, “Hey, I know what that feels like. It’s tough when you’re so overwhelmed.”
With that simple statement, a lazy coworker might open up about why they can’t get motivated. When that problem has an answer, you can develop a solution.
4. Consider an Adjustment Period
How long has this coworker been lazy? If they started working a week or two ago and seem lazy, they might be taking things slowly as they figure out the processes. Or, if they’ve been a lazy coworker for a solid year, I think it’s safe to say they’re beyond the adjustment period.
It’s also a good idea to consider how long it’s been since someone mentioned their slacking to them. Suppose you had a conversation with the lazy coworker regarding their behavior, and it’s been a few days of slight improvements. In that case, you might consider giving an adjustment period before bringing it up again.
It takes time and hard effort to change habits. When a lazy coworker is the hardest working employee immediately following a conversation about it, that change likely will not stick. They will find themselves sliding back into old habits quickly. However, when the lazy coworker takes small steps of improvement over time, they are more likely to be a better worker for the rest of their days.
An adjustment period gives workers the ability to take steps toward where they want to be instead of running and losing momentum quickly.
5. Remember Your Goals
When facing a lazy coworker, you must remember your personal goals and those of the team or organization. If you have goals to meet and this individual is not one of your charges, you cannot let it distract you from what you are trying to achieve. Of course, there are times when a lazy coworker is directly in the way of accomplishing goals – then, we need to take action.
However, if you find yourself getting distracted because of the unfairness of it all (why are they getting paid when they aren’t doing the work?!), you may miss the goals you set for yourself. Focus on your goals and what you aim for; don’t waste time on the lazy coworker whose performance has nothing to do with you.
6. Don’t Act on Emotions
Our work can get emotional, especially when we care about the work. Even if you don’t particularly care about the work but recognize your job as something that takes time away from what you care about, you can get emotional and heated about a lazy coworker.
As difficult as it is, don’t give in to your emotional reactions. Causing a scene and yelling at the lazy coworker likely won’t make them change. In fact, they might report you to HR as a danger to others or inappropriate.
This goes back to number two because you have to be professional. While that is essential, you must also remember to manage your emotions. Professionals can get emotional sometimes. They can react instead of responding to situations.
My advice? Always aim for responding over reacting. The difference? A reaction is emotional. A response is logical. Think through your actions before you take them, leaders, and you’ll have fewer regrets.
7. Take on Solo Tasks
Work alone! A lazy coworker makes group or team projects miserable. Too often, you’ll find yourself babysitting your coworker or taking on the tasks they are supposed to complete. If given the opportunity, skip the collaboration with the lazy coworker.
I don’t mean always work alone because collaboration can be so helpful to organizations and people. What I mean is if you are always paired up with a lazy coworker on projects, seek out tasks and projects you can do alone. When you do this and succeed with solo tasks, it will become clear who is dropping the ball on the group projects.
8. Bring in the Whole Team
So, you’ve been grouped with the lazy coworker again. Propose a whole team effort. Instead of a two-person job, ask around the office for input on various tasks. Be honest about your role in the project and the role of the other employee. Share with the group which tasks you are taking on and which are the responsibilities of the lazy coworker.
I’m not saying you should be the office gossip. Don’t brag about your workload or how much you are doing in relation to someone else. Lay out the plan to the whole team to make the picture clear.
When the end of the project has come, the whole team will know which parts of the project belonged to whom…plus, they will be able to relieve some of the added responsibilities from you that initially belonged to the lazy coworker.
9. Communicate with Higher Ups (Without Tattling)
Imagine going to your immediate supervisor and saying, “Jim isn’t doing his job.”
As a mom, I can tell you honestly; I hear this at least a dozen times daily. I don’t want to listen to this in a work setting when my children are nowhere near me. We do not need to tattle on the lazy coworker. Talk about you.
“I’m feeling overwhelmed with all of the extra tasks I’ve had to take on as of late. Here’s what I’ve been doing; what can be done to change this workload?”
“I’m not able to get everything completed during work hours. Can we look at my daily tasks and find a better way to distribute tasks?”
“I’ve had to take on tasks outside of my expertise that are impacting my ability to do what is in my job description. Is there something we can do to restructure this work?”
10. Offer Reasonable Help and Assistance (Picking Up the Slack Isn’t Your Job)
The lazy coworker might feel overwhelmed by the amount of work they must do. In this case, some help might push them in the right direction. When a lazy coworker has a task you have the time and ability to assist with, try offering that help. Remember, you shouldn’t be picking up the slack but helping your coworker pick it up themselves.
What does this look like? It isn’t doing the job for them. Instead, offer to help plan their day and determine which tasks should take priority. Or, you might help them renegotiate a deadline. Be helpful, but don’t do the work for them.
11. Never Enable the Slacking or Lazy Coworker
When you do the work for a lazy coworker, you’re enabling them to continue being lazy. This might be challenging for people who want to help and feel compelled to do the work for someone else! It is important to remember that doing someone else’s job typically means that you are taking on extra work while they are getting paid for it. Too many people would take advantage of that deal. Please don’t do it.
12. Don’t Get Dragged Down
Have you ever been in the presence of someone relaxing and just wanted to do the same? When my paramedic husband gets home from a 24-hour shift, he typically doesn’t want to do much – and that’s deserved rest if you ask me! But when he is sitting on the couch enjoying his day off, I feel like I should be sitting on the couch all day, too, even when I have plenty to do.
We can easily fall into this habit at work, too. When a lazy coworker is taking ten coffee breaks a day, why shouldn’t we? Because we will become another lazy coworker, too! Don’t fall into that trap, friends.
13. Be Optimistic!
I’m an optimistic person, so maybe this is just me. But even when you have a lazy coworker to contend with, stay positive. Always imagine that things will turn out as they should. Whether that means the lazy coworker finds another job or somehow the work gets done anyway, just stay with the half-full glass.
Your mental health will thank you.
14. Never Assume They’ll Change
While staying optimistic about a lazy coworker is important, it is also wise to avoid assumptions. You cannot force someone to change. They have to make that decision on their own. If you go into a project with a lazy coworker and assume they will change and take on their respective tasks, some tasks might be missed.
While it isn’t your responsibility to take on their tasks, it is essential to consider how it might make you look and take some of the actions listed here. Please don’t rely on the assumption that they are going to do better this time. That might come back to hurt you.
15. Use it As a Learning Lesson
Can you truly learn from a lazy coworker? Honesty, you can learn from anything. Learn what not to do. Learn how to handle the situation. Learn, learn, learn. Learning from real-life situations, like lazy coworkers, can be a great way to remember life’s lessons.
The lazy coworker taught me how to manage my priorities.
The lazy coworker taught me how to communicate in uncomfortable situations.
The lazy coworker taught me how to regulate my emotions.
Just learn from it, leaders. You won’t regret learning!
Lazy Coworkers Can Change
Here’s the big positive: change is possible. Lazy coworkers do not have to remain lazy coworkers. Knowing this, you must also know that lazy coworkers cannot change if they do not want to change. Changing habits requires genuine effort and time, including lazy habits. It can be challenging to break a long-lasting habit.
If a lazy coworker truly wants to become a hardworking employee, they can! Great leaders can help them to make that change in themselves. Lazy coworkers can become exquisite with guidance, time, and effort.