How to Have Healthy Workplace Conflict Resolution

Member

By caird
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating: (4 Ratings)

If you are a supervisor or manager, you have or have had or will have subordinates who are in conflict with each other. Conflicts must be resolved or they will fester into larger problems that undermine your success. Resolving conflicts can make your organization stronger.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Easy to understand written policies, procedures, plans, mission statements, core values, etc.
The Desire to Lead

Step 1

Identifying the conflict

This should be pretty easy. Usually one or both employees who are in conflict will come to you. Or, they will openly disagree in a department meeting. Sometimes a third party will come to you.
Step 2

Is the source of the conflict work related or personal?

The conflict may arise from a disagreement over how to perform a work related task or tasks. Or, it may be a disagreement of a personal natrure concerning politics, money or some such thing. Work related problems and and problems arising from personal matters should be handled the same in some ways and in some ways differently.
Step 3

Handling a conflict which is personal in nature

Review your written policies. Do you prohibit discrimination based upon race, religion, etc? Do you prohibit financial transactions between employees? Does the conflict in any way relate to your written policies? If it does, reissue the policy(ies) and make sure both parties sign for a copy. In rare cases, this will be enough of a nudge for them to back off each other.

If tension persists, you need to meet individually with the employees involved. If one of them has violated the rights of the other, for example by ridiculing them for their religious belifs, you need to make sure they know that you have policies against such action. And, they need to know that there may be negative consequences if they persist. But, they need to know that the organization does not intend to control their thoughts, just their behavior while they are at work.

The offfended party needs to be counseled, also. They need to be assured that they have certain protections under company policy. However, they need to know that they need to bring these issues to mangement as early as possible so that they can be resolved. They also need to know that the organization does not intend to control anyone's thoughts, and is just interested in protecting people's rights.

If they are arguing over something of a personal nature and are equally wrong. They need to be reminded in a manner similar to the above that the workplace is not appropriate for such behavior and that continued arguing can have negative consequences.

In extreme cases, if the employees are important to the success of the organization and cannot be replaced, a third party arbitrator should be considered.
Step 4

If the conflict is over procedural, functional or other work related matters, you need to meet with each of them individually and get their input. Examine each position to determine if one of them is superior to the other. That is, will going one way rather than the other make a better product or help the bottom line? There may be a third and better way to procede that comes to mind as you consider the merits of the arguements. In any case, you need to make a decision to go one way in favor of the other. Relationship to your core values and benefits to your organization need to guide you and you need to be able to defend your decision based upon these factors.
Step 5

Communicate your decision

I recommend that you meet with both employees together. In this way, you can be sure that they both come away with the same impression of what transpired in your meeting. Tell them of your decision. Tell them what benefits or policies drove your decision making. Make sure that they understand that one of them "won" and one of them "lost." Also, make sure they understand that you encourage health competition and do not negatively judge those who challenge the status quo. Thank both of them for making the product stronger or the bottom line bigger.
Step 6

Re-evaluate your communication program. Many times conflicts happen because employees are unaware of organization policies, prodedures or goals. Better communication may avoid future conflicts.

Comments

dressyourhorse said

Flag This Comment

on 9/7/2009 Employee problems can be among the toughest matters that a manager can face. I underscore your point that what is personal stays home! Thank you for a good article!