By: Bill Vogel, PHR
VirtualHRPros.com June 18, 2018 Conflicts within the workplace are unavoidable, managers and supervisors must have the necessary skills to respond appropriately to prevent conflict from escalating. Left unattended, conflicts become disputes that could then result in lost productivity, employee turnover, customer complaints, or lawsuits. Pulling employees aside and actively listening to their complaints is the less challenging part of managing conflict. How a manager or supervisor successfully responds to workplace conflict is the bigger challenge. Workplace conflicts can occur for a variety of reasons but usually fall under two categories, which are disagreements related to personal issues or work activity issues. For example, two employees that dislike each other because of a failed relationship outside of work and are unable to work together is a personal issue. Conversely, two employees who have competing ideas about how to reach a goal is a work activity issue. Once the conflict is categorized managers and supervisors can determine an appropriate response that will resolve the conflict before it gets out of hand. Five appropriate responses to conflict are as follows:
Opposing - Conflicts that put the company’s welfare at risk requires quick and conclusive action. These are usually personal or relationship type conflicts. For example, an employee that posts false information on social media websites about a manager or supervisor, in retaliation for receiving discipline, requires a forceful approach that opposes the behavior. The approach may include additional discipline or termination in this matter. As a side note, before taking steps against employees for this type of activity, make sure you have an effective social media policy in place. Collaborating – Sometimes conflict leads to employees having relevant important and useful points of view that requires an integrative resolution. These are often work place type of conflicts. For example, two engineers find design flaws that create safety concerns but have conflicting ideas about how to correct the problem. The best approach is a collaboration between the employees that encourages tolerance and agreement towards the best solution. This is a great example of workplace conflict that comes with benefits, which means that along with conflict managers and supervisors can learn something new. Compromising – Conflict resolution may result in both parties willing to give up something to arrive at a mutually satisfying solution. These can be personal or workplace type of conflicts. For example, two employees that depend on each other to achieve individual goals may blame the other for a missed deadline. One of these employees may have a good reason for delays, such as returning from vacation and needing to catch up on workloads. A compromise may include the other employee agreeing to perform some of the other employee’s duties temporarily to achieve the necessary goals by the assigned deadlines. Accommodating – This is a unassertive cooperative approach to conflict resolution. These types of conflict can be both personal and work related. For example, employees often have issues with scheduling that cause conflict with manager or supervisor. To make sure customers receive services or when expected, employees need to be at work and on time. However, the manager or supervisor may need to accommodate the employee, such as a change in schedule. This may also be necessary for legal reasons. Avoiding – Avoiding conflict seems like the wrong thing to do, however it may be necessary if the manager or supervisors is confronted with high emotions, needs more information, or the issue is of little importance. Most of all, a conflict that a manager or supervisor has no chance of winning should be avoided. These are usually personal issue types of conflicts. Let’s take for example the two employees that can’t work together because of a failed relationship outside of work. In this situation, the manager or supervisor will fail miserably trying to get the two employees to at least like each other in the hopes they will once again work as a team. This conflict needs to be avoided, but the manager or supervisor must address any poor performance issues. At Virtual HR Pros, we have resources for managers to help them improve culture and moral in the workplace. As always, get help from a qualified HR Professional if you think your business is at risk, or needs help developing policies, procedures, and training courses to assist with workplace compliance requirements.
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