Ghanaian entrepreneur and McDan Group Chairman, Dr Daniel McKorley, popularly known as McDan, has emphasized that people rarely lose their jobs without warning.
He says dismissal is often the final outcome of small workplace habits that accumulate quietly until an employer decides enough is enough.
The Ghanaian business mogul with depth of experience in Ghana’s business landscape notes that employees should not wait for a termination letter before asking what went wrong. In many cases, the warning signs appear much earlier, through declining performance, poor attitude, weak discipline or failure to remain relevant.
In a remark to admonish employees, McDan outlined eight subtle behaviours that can gradually push an employee towards the exit door.
Complacency: When You Stop Growing
Getting comfortable in a job can become dangerous when comfort turns into complacency. McDan warns against employees who settle into doing only the bare minimum after securing their positions.
Arriving just on time, leaving immediately at closing, avoiding new responsibilities, and failing to improve professionally can gradually make an employee less valuable.
He maintains that getting the job is not the end of the journey. Employees must keep learning, improving, and finding better ways to contribute.
Sense of Entitlement: Thinking They Cannot Do Without You
Some employees begin to believe that their experience, position, or connections make them indispensable. That attitude can show up in careless speech, resistance to correction, arrogance or a refusal to accept responsibility.
However, McDan reinforces that no employee is bigger than an organisation. Once your presence creates more problems than solutions, the organisation may decide it can function without you. He calls on workers to be confident in their value, but never confuse being valuable with being indispensable.
Lack of Discipline: When Small Habits Become a Record
The Chairman of McDan Group recounts that missing deadlines, submitting incomplete work, excessive phone use, blaming colleagues, gossiping, and repeatedly being absent may appear like isolated incidents.
But over time, they create a pattern. He notes that a manager may not confront an employee every time these things happen, but that does not mean they go unnoticed. He cautions that an employee’s everyday habits are building a professional reputation, whether he or she realises it or not.
Invisibility: Doing Your Job Without Showing Your Value
Simply being present and completing assigned tasks may not be enough to distinguish an employee when an organisation faces restructuring or downsizing. McDan warns that employees who never suggest ideas, take initiative, or demonstrate the impact of their work can become difficult to defend when difficult decisions have to be made.
He says an employee must do his or her job well, but also make their contribution visible. Show how your work helps the team or organisation achieve its goals.
Resistance to Change: Refusing to Move With the World
Workplaces are constantly changing. New technologies, systems, processes and expectations are introduced. Employees who respond by complaining that “this is how we have always done it” risk being left behind.
McDan argues that refusing to learn new ways of working can eventually turn an employee from an asset into a liability. He acknowledges that you do not have to love every change, but you must be willing to learn, adapt, and remain useful.
Poor Character: When Trust Disappears
The seasoned entrepreneur indicates that skills can get you hired, but character can determine how long you stay. McDan points to dishonesty, cutting corners, misusing company property, disrespecting colleagues, telling lies, and publicly damaging the reputation of one’s employer as behaviours that can destroy workplace trust.
Once an employer no longer trusts an employee, keeping that employee becomes difficult. He admonishes that you protect your integrity as seriously as you protect your performance. A damaged reputation can be harder to repair than a missed target.
Poor Communication: Making People Chase You
An employee may complete an assignment but still create problems by failing to communicate. He says ignoring emails, withholding updates, leaving colleagues waiting, or failing to alert a manager when a deadline cannot be met can make even a competent employee appear unreliable.
McDan describes communication as one of the silent ways employees can damage their standing at work. He recommends constantly keeping people informed. If there is a problem, communicate early. Silence rarely makes a workplace problem smaller.
Creating Problems Instead of Solving Them
Employees are ultimately paid to contribute to the organisation’s objectives and solve problems. If someone consistently creates additional work, conflicts, delays or operational difficulties, their employment becomes harder to justify.
He calls on employees to look beyond their job description. McDan insists you understand what your employer is trying to achieve and find ways to make your team’s work easier and more effective.
The Bottomline
For McDan, dismissal or termination is often not a sudden event. The termination letter may simply be the final visible outcome of problems that have been developing for months.
Complacency, entitlement, indiscipline, invisibility, resistance to change, poor character, weak communication and a failure to solve problems can gradually erode an employee’s value.
The good news is that most of these risks are within an employee’s control. “If you are not careful, small habits can quietly push you toward the exit. But if you choose growth, discipline, character, and excellence, you will not just keep your job; you will become the kind of person every company wants to keep,” he advised.
The entrepreneur believes every worker must aim to become the kind of employee an organisation has a reason to keep when difficult choices have to be made.
