Managing Employee Conflict
Sep 22 in Smart Management This is a guest post by Susanne Van Maarion.
One of the trickier aspects of operating a business is handling professional differences amongst employees. There are times, especially on those dreaded Monday mornings, when it is tempting to simply stand back and let them work it out themselves. The problem with this approach is that unresolved staff conflict can have a corrosive affect on the atmosphere of the workplace, hindering employee effectiveness and hurting your bottom-line results. Gossip and office politics are particular deterrents to employee productivity and morale – those who partake in them utilize their work hours going off on tactical assignments to sabotage rivals, while those on the receiving end experience frustration and anxiety, benefiting neither the team nor the business.
What’s a manager to do? Very often, you will be unaware that conflict is even happening until it becomes a full-blown crisis. Once you know there are problems between staff members, you run the risk of becoming wedged in the middle, getting pulled into a “he-said/she-said” tug-of-war which ultimately leads nowhere. As frustrating as this is, effective managers recognize that staff conflict is par for the course of running a business. Power struggles, differences of opinion, and office politics are to be expected – its how you decide to handle them that can spell the difference between a lucrative, high-functioning team and a hostile, dysfunctional workplace that drains the vitality and earning potential away from your business.
In today’s demanding market place, business operators will need to know how to manage more than inventory and overhead costs if they want to remain competitive and versatile. Handling staff conflict in a way that enhances relationships and improves communication will boost employee engagement, giving back to your bottom-line with increased productivity. Of course, being aware of this is one matter, putting it into practice is quite another.By using the following guidelines for workplace conflict, you will be more than just a good boss; you’ll be a strong leader.
Be Neutral.
It is imperative that you respond to employee disagreements in an objective, impartial manner. Your role as a leader is to support your staff to resolve their differences and negotiate a reasonable compromise, not to take sides.
Often, what appears to be a personality conflict is actually a professional difference of opinion that can be resolved with some skillful mediation. People are passionate about their beliefs and can find compromise difficult when they feel strongly about something. By approaching disagreements in a conscientious, composed way, you provide the steadiness and neutrality required to guide employees through their conflict. At the end of the day, it’s just a conversation– one that can lead to superior results if handled correctly.
Redirect Them Back To Each Other.
Employees often tattle on each other to persuade the boss into resolving their conflicts for them, although some do it intentionally to project negative attention away from themselves. Avoid potential problems by not reacting blindly to information one employee gives you about another (unless it clearly involves a violation of the law). Without directly observing the behavior you’re being informed of, the situation becomes one of hearsay and you will need to gather further information before making any decisions.
Encourage your staff members to address their concerns directly with each other. This supports employees to be up front with one another which develops their professional communication skills, while also providing your personnel with fair opportunities to improve undesirable behavior before it becomes a larger issue. After all, it is hard to change a behavior that others find problematic when it is unknown. Part of working effectively as a team involves members giving timely and supportive feedback to each other, and your role as a leader is to encourage this, not to enable gossip.
Set (and Stick To) the Ground Rules.
Successful conflict mediation involves establishing and upholding some basic ground rules. People aren’t going to bring up issues with each other if they don’t feel safe to do so, and it is part of your role to ensure that some structure and guidelines are in place in order to keep conflict safe and constructive.
Having firm limits and ground rules for staff in conflict not only helps to keep discussions on track and contained, but it cultivates a sense of security that will encourage employees to communicate about their differences more openly. The core of facilitating effective employee conflict resolution is the understanding that people don’t have to agree with or even like each other, but they need to be respectful. This means zero tolerance for yelling, name-calling, threatening, and mudslinging. Your expectation as a boss is that your employees are consistently conducting themselves in a civil and professional manner, and establishing these rules for conflict can make it a creative process instead of a destructive force in your company.
Susanne Van Maarion has a Master of Social Work Degree and has previous experience supervising front-line employees for a non-for-profit agency. She presently works as a therapist and a freelance writer. A member of the Writer's Guild of Alberta, Susanne writes poetry as well as non-fiction and is currently completing the self-help/business title: How to Survive and Thrive in a Toxic Workplace, slated for publishing in 2010.
Reader Comments (2)
My 18 year old daughter is waiting tables in a small family owned "sub" shop. The 25 year old waitress, in front of customers and staff, cursed and belittled my daughter (because my girl would not take her shift). The words she used are so horrible that I cannot even post them. When the owner was told, his comment was, "I'm not your Daddy". This was particularly hard as we lost my husband a few months ago, and my child iswithout a father.
How as a parent do I give her great advice about working in an extreme toxic job!
HELP
Hi, Robyn. Thanks for commenting. I'm sending you a personal response by email.