Coping with workplace conflict
Behaviour / 01 July 2010
Conflict in the workplace erodes team morale and creates difficult work environments. But dialogue, communication and the use of moderators can stop grievances escalating, says Karen Higginbottom
Nobody likes to deal with conflict in the workplace. The recent escalating dispute between Unite and British Airways is a perfect example of two parties in entrenched positions that have failed to come to agreement. It also illustrates the damage unresolved conflicts can inflict on the profitability of an organisation.
UK organisations pay a high price to resolve conflict at work. In the Fight, Flight or Face It report, co-authored by business psychologists OPP and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), dealing with disputes results in around 370 million lost working days a year. What is worse, this costs UK employers £24bn a year.
Managers should see resolving conflict as a key part of their job and need to move beyond thinking that conflict is a problem. They need to start seeing conflict as useful and creative
Peter Hamill, senior consultant, Roffey Park
If a dispute is unresolved and progresses to an employment tribunal, this can cost an organisation almost £20,000 each year.
In addition, CIPD adds that organisations spend up to 351 days of HR and management time a year dealing with disciplinary and grievance cases, and responding to employment tribunal claims.
The most common causes of conflict in the workplace are general behaviour and conduct issues. Unsurprisingly, this is followed by clashes over performance and sickness absence, and working relationships between colleagues.
Theft and fraud, bullying and harassment, sex discrimination and equal pay issues are also frequent causes of disputes.
Poor performance
So how can managers resolve day to day disputes at work, ranging from inappropriate behaviour to addressing underperformance in a long-standing employee? The answer is early intervention by managers, argues James Meachin, principal psychologist at business and organisational psychologists Pearn Kandola.
“You must act quickly. Many cases of formal harassment have their roots in minor disputes that occurred months or years ago. If conflict is unchecked, it can escalate.”
Managers also need to see that conflict is not necessarily a negative thing, suggests Peter Hamill, senior consultant at research institute Roffey Park. “Managers should see resolving conflict as a key part of their job and need to move beyond thinking that conflict is a problem. They need to start seeing conflict as useful and creative.”
Hamill advises that managers ask the employees in dispute to explain the other person’s perspective in their own words.
“This lets the other person know they have been heard. Managers can act as facilitators and ask the staff involved in the dispute what they want and why it is important to them. It’s important to get the staff to look at the end result rather than the issue they have attached themselves to. The manager needs to think: how can I meet the needs of the two opposing parties?”
There are a number of consensus-based decision making techniques which can be used to resolve conflict at work. One method managers could try, says Meachin, is the brainstorming approach.
“This is about encouraging both parties to invent a range of options for advancing shared interests and mitigating any differences. This approach encourages teamworking as all parties are working towards the same outcome.”
Another informal technique is the continuum of intervention, with varying stepped approaches to dealing with conflict. “There are five steps along the continuum,” explains Meachin, “with the far left being a facilitator approach and the far right the direct approach.”
Sowing the seeds
Most facilitators would first attempt to ‘seed-sow’, says Meachin. “For example, a manager might witness someone making an inappropriate comment about a member of the team. As their line manager, I would say something that would make them question the appropriateness of that remark. This is planting a seed in their mind, ‘seed-sowing’, to get them thinking about whether they’ve done the right thing by their colleague.
“At the opposite end of the scale, you might make a direct statement such as ‘That comment is inappropriate.’ The trick with the continuum of intervention is that it’s easier to move from a facilitator to a direct approach. If you start with a direct approach, you cannot step back from that.”
If the conflict is unlikely to be resolved internally, then a manager might consider using mediation. This means using a third party to help those in dispute to explore the issues, explains Gill Trevelyan, head of good practice services at ACAS, the employment relations service.
“Mediation may involve the third party challenging, prompting and suggesting but not judging or recommending solutions. Those in dispute retain the power to determine the outcome.”
John Smith (not his real name) is the chief executive of a social enterprise who has used an external mediator to resolve a conflict between himself and a senior manager.
“In this particular circumstance, the individual had done something stupid which caused serious risk to the reputation of the organisation. I decided not to sack him and asked him to apologise for what he did. He did this, but remained very grumpy with me and launched a grievance claim. I offered him the choice of going through a formal procedure or having mediation and he chose the latter.”
The external mediator spent time with both Smith and the senior manager at an off-site location. Smith explains: “I was able to say what my position was and then we looked to see if there was any common ground, which there was. We wouldn’t have had this conversation without mediation. He accepted that he had put the reputation of the charity at risk, so the conflict was resolved.”
Using mediation to resolve conflict is one way of having an honest and grown-up conversation outside the context of a formal procedure, adds Smith. “I work very hard to stop those disputes before they escalate. My experience is that the minute you go down a grievance or disciplinary route, someone leaves the organisation.”
Good managers should have some training or experience in resolving conflict at work, believes Smith. “However, very few managers do have that skill. You definitely need some kind of training in how to spot conflict emerging. The trick is to get to the problem before it becomes conflict and get to the conflict before it becomes war.”
Resolve it quickly
The consequences of ignoring any problems in the office can be severe, Smith points out. “Good people start to look for other jobs when conflict is handled badly by managers. Organisational performance plummets at a rapid rate.”
It’s even more important that managers get to grips with resolving clashes in the workplace when budgets are tight and staff are under a great deal of pressure to deliver results. The current recession has inevitably seen an increase in the number of private sector employees reporting a rise in conflict at work between colleagues. With the recent budget cuts, it’s a problem that is unlikely to go away any time soon.