How to Resolve Conflicts at Work: Types, Causes, Examples
Workplace conflict is a problem: that much we can all agree on. It’s a negative experience for all parties, from the employees that are directly involved in any incidents to the wider company that may experience the knock-on effects.?
Unfortunately, it’s more common than you might initially think, with an international study by CPP Global revealing that 89% of employees have experienced a conflict that has escalated in the workplace. The study also showed that UK workers spend (or waste) an average of almost 2 hours per week dealing with workplace conflict.
Conflict in the workplace can cause stress, anxiety and depression, directly affecting employee productivity and morale. There’s even a financial consequence, with workplace conflict estimated to cost UK employers around ￡28.5 billion each year. To put it into perspective for your own business, organisational conflicts cost just over ￡1,000 per employee per year.?
By learning to notice early signs of workplace disputes, as well as how to mitigate or even prevent conflict situations in the first place, we can build a happier work environment with satisfied employees (and save a substantial amount of cash!).?
But in order to create strategies for conflict resolution, we first need to understand what it actually is and what it may look like for employers. Let’s find out more.
Contents
What is conflict in the workplace?
Causes of conflict in the workplace
How to spot signs of conflict at work
Methods of conflict resolution
Conflict management courses
What is conflict in the workplace?
Workplace conflict usually occurs when there’s a disagreement between employees. This could be down to either opposing beliefs, political ideologies, interests, personalities, or even project-based ideas.?
Of course, it’s inevitable that employees will disagree or clash from time to time. You’re employing a group of people that come from all different backgrounds, cultures and perspectives to work alongside one another – they’re not always going to see eye to eye.?
Plus, people can just have a bad day sometimes! Life happens and it doesn’t always go as planned. It’s not always easy to leave your personal worries and stresses behind and it can have an emotional impact on our working day.?
Conflict can be expressed in various ways. It could be through a lack of cooperation, verbal insults, poor quality of work or even an entire project failure.?
Causes of conflict in the workplace
While employees may have differing views and opinions, it doesn’t have to – nor should it – result in an escalated workplace conflict.?
Workplace disputes therefore may take place as a result of poor management style, unclear job roles and descriptions, or inadequate training – all of which can be easily rectified by senior staff.?
Let’s cover a few of the major causes of conflict in the workplace that are less easy to deal with:
Personality clashes?
Strong personalities can be great for business.?
Whether it’s the energetic go-getters that help to push your company towards your vision, or the opinionated decision-maker that gets stuff done. Naturally, no two personalities are the same and not everyone will get along. In fact, a CPP study suggested that personality clashes are one of the most commonly attributed causes of workplace conflict, with 49% of respondents naming it as a factor.?
Unrealistic needs and expectations
While we can expect our employees to produce great work, we can’t expect them to perform miracles. Unrealistically high expectations will cause ongoing stress for employees, which can lead to conflict as a consequence.?
Company values
Brand values act as a guide for how we conduct business. If they’re vague or some employees don’t act according to these values, it could cause frustration among co-workers.
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Unresolved workplace issues
Issues that are left unresolved can fester and cause resentment in employees. This bottled feeling could reveal itself at any point down the line.
How to spot signs of conflict at work
Employees won’t always bring issues to the attention of HR, especially in the earlier stages.?
Being able to recognise and identify early signs of conflict at work is the best way to get ahead of any tensions or disagreements that could boil over into a situation of conflict.?
There are a number of tell-tale signs that may point toward individuals experiencing some level of conflict at work, these include:?
Methods for conflict resolution
We now understand what conflict might look like, and what may cause it, but how can we look to mitigate its impact? First and foremost, by effective conflict resolution. Most workplaces will have trained HR representatives – or even line managers who have received additional training – who can help facilitate conflict resolution in the workplace.
Individuals who are able to resolve conflicts are often excellent mediators. They’ll typically possess specific people-related skills that are useful in conflict management techniques and can be learned. Important conflict resolving skills include:
Let’s dig into some of the most common strategies they may use to help with conflict resolution in the workplace:
Avoid
Avoiding conflict may happen when you can foresee the possibility of conflict and decide to change tact to prevent it from happening.?
This is only feasible when there are alternative actions or routes to take and there are no other clear solutions to the problem. You’ll still need to take a look at the route of the issue to prevent resentment from employees or the reemergence of conflict situations further down the line.?
Accommodate
When you accommodate someone's needs, you’re being flexible to fulfil their personal requirements. The same sort of principle applies when you’re accommodating in a workplace conflict. It’s essentially giving one of the parties what they need.?
This method only really works when the outcome doesn’t negatively affect anyone else, or anyone who is affected isn’t too bothered by it. For instance, if two employees have opposing ideas, but one feels more strongly about it than the other, it might be best to accommodate them to avoid conflict.?
However, it is more of a short-term solution to give you time to resolve the conflict in the long term.
Compromise
Compromising is similar to accommodating, except that the parties involved are both accommodating to an extent, but not fully. They’ll meet halfway on their expectations to resolve the conflict in a way that works for everyone.
A compromise is a quick and effective way to mitigate conflict, but again, you’ll need to take a look at the root cause in order to prevent it from recurring in the future.?
Collaborate
This method is similar to compromising in the way that both parties will need to work together. However, while compromising means that each party will accept that not all of their conditions will be fulfilled, collaborating means that they’ll work together to try to meet all of the conditions. This will typically take longer than compromising.?
Compete
Competing is more of a last resort where neither party agrees to avoid, accommodate, compromise or collaborate.
However, it could be turned into a friendly competition, for instance where two parties have an idea for a project, they could compete to pitch and agree that the winner will be selected by their co-workers.?
Conflict management courses
My Learning Hub has a course library full of helpful resources on preventing, managing and resolving workplace conflict, including Management & Leadership, Personal Development, Workplace Wellbeing, Communication & Social Skills, and Teamwork.
To enquire into any of these courses as well as other employee development training programmes, get in touch with My Learning Hub today!