Picture this, one of the employees in your office does not agree with their team’s working style. To add to that, they have got a tight deadline for a new task and their leave application request was also rejected by their team’s manager. This is a perfect recipe for a conflicting situation to arise.
Maybe two of your employees ended up working on the same task without realizing it, and only figured it out after both had finished. Now, only one person’s work will be used, and the other’s efforts will go to waste.
Such situations can easily escalate, causing a tense atmosphere in the workplace. This is a very common situation called workplace conflict and if not addressed soon enough, it could cause a lot of issues. Sooner or later, the productivity levels will drop, and the team morale will take a hit. It’s so common that according to research, 85% of employees experience some kind of conflict in the workplace. There can be many reasons behind a conflict arising. Let’s see a few of them.
Reasons Behind a Workplace Conflict
There is no hard and fast rule that a conflict could arrive due to just one particular reason. You know how even a small fire could take out the entire farm. It’s the same here.
Be it an employee forgetting to inform about missing a deadline, difficult employees who don’t want to work in a team, or juniors being incompatible with their seniors, the reasons could be many. Sometimes even a simple miscommunication among teammates could cause a big issue.
A workplace will have people from different backgrounds, races, genders, and age groups. This could also potentially give rise to discriminatory behavior, which is one of the biggest reasons for conflict.
How To Resolve Workplace Conflict?
1. Look for the Root Cause:
The first step to resolving any workplace conflict is to understand its root cause. Most of the conflicts arise due to misunderstandings, different working styles, or personality clashes. For example, there may be someone in your team who likes to be the lone wolf and operate independently, while the other one needs a team environment to excel. Pairing them on a task could cause a lot of friction.
To identify the root cause, look for behaviors and encourage those involved to be open with their thoughts. Pointed questions like “What do you think caused this problem?” could help to know underlying issues like vague roles or illogical expectations. Once it’s identified, address it directly. Be it clearing out roles or improving communication. This way, you can ensure that the solution offered is fair and effective.
2. Facilitate Open Communication:
If you are investigating a conflict, sit with both parties and hear them out. This can either be a one-on-one meeting or even a group discussion. Be sympathetic to everyone involved and consider their opinions too. Try to understand their emotions and offer some solutions. This is something that has to happen across the company.
A culture where employees are encouraged to openly communicate is a healthy culture. It’s also HR’s responsibility to make employees feel comfortable and safe while expressing their concerns and their side of the story without fearing any judgment.
3. Work Together to Find Solutions:
Once you know what the main reason is behind this conflict, get everyone involved to look for potential solutions. Include employees to resolve the issue, so that they feel more invested and responsible for the outcome. This also keeps everyone on the same page.
Instead of being a mere spectator and throwing in your suggestions from afar, train employees to come up with solutions themselves in such situations. This way, they can also realize how their actions have an impact on others.
4. Keep Track of Things Post-Meeting:
A single meeting won’t be sufficient to resolve the conflict. Once the decisions are made, always follow up to ensure that the solutions discussed are being followed. See if there’s anything else that could be done to improve the situation. If it is a situation that affects many employees in the office, you have to take the responsibility of seeing that everyone is fine with the decisions made.
Conduct a survey using greytHR, which acts as a direct channel to gather employee feedback on every aspect of their work-life. To keep everyone in the loop, send a mail that summarizes all the key takeaways, decisions made, updates, and anything else that might have been discussed in the meeting.
5. Track Performance:
To ensure that the suggested remedies are working, review the employees’ performance before and after the incident and the follow-up meeting. If you find a dip in the performance, then better solutions are needed. When their performance reaches a satisfactory level, have a few check-ins with both parties just to hear their thoughts and to ensure everything stays amicable.
You can also take feedback from the team to look for ways to improve this process. greytHR’s performance management system is an easy way to get this done. It has a simple UI and provides tons of insights and statistics that’ll help you determine the impact of any conflict.
6. Address Systematic Issues:
Such conflicts arising in the workplace could also be a sign of a deeper systematic issue. Issues like poor management, irregular workloads, or unclear roles could create a stressful and unhealthy environment leading to repeated conflicts.
To tackle these, review management practices and team dynamics, and distribute tasks evenly so that you can avoid falling into the same toxic patterns. By fixing these issues, you can prevent future conflicts and create a healthier work environment.
Apart from that, as HR, you have to ensure that you are impartial throughout the process and aren’t getting affected by it personally. Stay focused on your role as the mediator who should bring all involved parties to a peaceful conclusion as soon as possible.
Summing Up
If workplace conflicts remain unresolved, they can take a toll on your employee’s mental health. So train them to deal with it respectfully, as it would also improve their relations with other employees. Just remember, as an HR, your job is to negate the situation as quickly and peacefully as possible.
FAQs
What Are the Five 5 Strategies to Resolve Workplace Conflict?
The five conflict resolution strategies are avoiding, competing, accommodating, compromising, and collaborating. Here, avoiding is used for minor issues or to de-escalate tension, and competing is used for decisive action prioritizing one’s needs. Accommodating is used for situations where you have to prioritize others to maintain harmony. Compromising is used when finding a middle ground is crucial to calm the situation down. Finally, collaborating is used when the two are working together for a win-win solution.
How to Solve a Conflict at Work?
If there’s a conflict at the workplace, the best way to deal with it is by first talking to the other party rationally. Get help from HR, if required, as they can help you guide through the entire process. Talking and coming to a conclusion mutually is the only healthy way to deal with such situations.
How to Resolve Misunderstandings in the Workplace?
Misunderstandings are bound to happen if there are issues in the communication channel. Try to talk to the other party and understand their perspective on things. Once that is sorted out, look for the reason there was a gap in coordination and fix it.
