What your staff survey isn't telling you about workplace conflict

On a daily basis we’re talking with organisations about their employee issues, and one particular HR concern crops up time and again: Based on the annual number of formal grievances and complaints alone, the business could believe it has relatively low levels of conflict, while the staff engagement survey results indicate high levels of reported bullying and harassment. The apparent mismatch between the two metrics understandably makes it difficult to gain an accurate picture of conflict, the consequences of which can be very costly.

Letting ‘ground level’ conflict fester - which can easily happen when HR are often the last to hear about such situations and therefore can’t help diffuse it any earlier - can result in hotspots of tensions and resentments between two or more employees that can impact productivity and engagement within whole teams if left unaddressed. And at the other end of the scale, having to resort to more overt and formal measures such as mediation and investigations also require a financial investment that can get out of hand.

The key to minimising the cost of conflict and the disruption it brings lies in:

a) Getting a full and accurate picture of your conflict in all forms at at all levels, and;
b) Educating everyone in the business about how conflict is caused, how to avoid it in the first place, and how to handle it sensitively and effectively if it does occur.

In a previous post we talk about ‘nipping conflict in the bud’ with training that helps individuals recognise their own and others’ social style and encourages healthy, positive working relationships. We firmly believe that getting a genuine handle on conflict requires a cultural commitment to understanding conflict and being accountable for keeping it to a minimum by all members of staff.

We recently ran a Group Conflict webinar related to the themes in this post – click here for the presentation slides.

Why Most Conflict Training is Missing the Point

Most organisations spend a lot of time and money doing mediations, investigations and tribunals related to dispute resolution. They also invest heavily in training HR and management to resolve conflict at an informal stage, but the fact is, once a conflict situation has reached the point where it needs to be addressed, some damage has already been done. 

Equipping staff with mediation and investigation skills to bring such situations to a close is certainly a step in the right direction, but is this really anything more than a sticking-plaster approach? 

Conflict training, if it is to genuinely achieve prevention of conflict in the first place – and by this we mean avoiding and dissolving tensions before they fester and escalate – it should incorporate more than strategies to deal with established conflict. Training which broadens employees understanding of human behaviour.

If people at work are able to understand the different types of ‘social style’ that exist in relation to their own, it gives them the power to know how and when they should adapt their behaviours to encourage healthy working relationships. This can only help mitigate the risk of any friction developing and building, leading to fewer complaints and grievances to deal with and ultimately a more collaborative culture with better teamwork, cooperation, harmony and respect. 

Surely this kind of training is the better investment?

Who’s leading the way towards Collaboration?

Earlier this week we were informed of new research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and Penna that “Over four in ten managers (43 per cent) consider their line managers to be ineffective.”

Whilst this is shocking in itself, it won’t come as a surprise to many HR professionals in the UK.  A large proportion of conflict that we deal with at People Resolutions stems from poor communication – most likely between line managers and employees.

The research also found a strong link between line manager effectiveness and business performance: “Only 39 per cent of managers in low performing business thought their line managers were effective, compared to 80 per cent in high performing organisations”.

People Management Training as a whole has been around for years – but is it working?  This research would suggest not.  However, this brings the fore the importance of leadership to an organisation.  Can a workforce ever truly be 100% effective if the leadership isn’t?

As part of our 2012 mission help organisations move from conflict affliction to collaborative performance, we must also address the question of who leads such a move in organisational culture. With workplace conflict currently costing UK businesses over £24 billion per year, the drive to minimise conflict and move towards a more collaborative culture is more important than ever.  As will all substantial shifts in organisational culture we believe that this should be lead from the top.

Gen Y Workers – Are They Collaborative?

Generation Y describes our young workforce, born between 1977 and 1990, who are in their early twenties to mid thirties. But for many employers, they’re also the least understood group.

Immersed in technology from an early age and constantly moving from one idea or trend to the next, Gen- Yers are often labelled as having short attention spans and blur the line between their work and private lives; just as they might receive personal text messages and visit Facebook at work, they’re also comfortable with checking work emails over the weekend. They prefer – or rather expect – job profiles full of variety, flexibilty, meaning and interaction in return for their loyalty (which explains why they usually move on after 18 months).

All of this places new demands on the employer to harness a group with mixed characteristics – new media savvy and ethically driven on the one hand and flighty and easily bored on the other. Gen- Yers may be naturally communicative, but does this mean they are more collaborative?

Let’s be clear about what we mean by ‘collaboration’ – an organisational culture where staff across disciplines and roles are able to work together co-operatively towards the business’ objectives. Companies that nurture this kind of environment are less likely to suffer from conflictual behaviours and associated symptoms such as work stress, absence, turnover, low engagement, etc.

On the face of it, the always-on, always-connected Gen-Y worker naturally fits the profile of collaborative contributor. Certainly for organisations built on remote/mobile working, Gen-Y’s inclination towards email, text messaging and online networking as ways to communicate with team members is a valuable asset. But this group has also been criticised for its tendency to favour such methods over face-to-face or telephone contact  with colleagues and customers, despite the potential of email to generate misunderstanding, conflict and delays. In this respect, Gen- Yers could learn from older colleagues who more likely to pick up the phone to iron out an issue, or seek out more ‘in-person’ teamwork.

More than effective communication and teamwork, being collaborative at work means behaving in a fair and equitable way, appreciating diversity in colleagues and having a high level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). MBA student, Michael Miranda, believes that “Baby Boomers are able to ‘self-manage’ far better than Gen- Y,” the latter being less aware of and in control of their feelings – a core component of EQ.

Of course, each generation (and individual) brings something different to the workplace, and it is a shared appreciation of these varied attributes that makes for a truly collaborative culture. For the passionate, iPhone-reliant Gen-Yer, today’s workplace must present an environment in which individuality can be expressed and collaborative behaviours are rewarded and reinforced from the top. 

The People Resolution Mission for 2012

At an estimated annual cost to the UK economy of £30bn, for many it will be hardly surprising to hear that workplace conflict is increasing. Constant change, budget cuts, ongoing restructuring and the daily pressure of asking people to 'do more for less' is taking its toll. This all points to the need for a more collaborative, effective workplace culture.

Therefore, People Resolutions has made it our mission to help organisations move from conflict affliction to collaborative performance.

Whilst there is some research already out there about collaboration, there doesn’t seem to be one uniformed, agreed definition. Over our 11 years of working in this field with many organisations, we have developed our own definition:

“Collaboration is a workplace culture where employees across different disciplines and roles are able work together co-operatively in a converged manner towards the organisation's objectives. Through our experience, we have found that a number of organisational factors influence collaboration, and when missing, an organisation can suffer from conflict in addition to many other undesirable symptoms including high turnover, significant absence relating to work stress, competitive culture, silo working, resentment and low engagement.”

To ensure we are building cutting-edge consultancy tools to help move organisations to a collaborative culture, we are working in conjunction with Coventry University on a year-long project to measure the positive impact of this behaviour on business success.

We, of course, are not saying that there can be only one definition of collaboration and we understand that this may mean something slightly different for each organisation. Ultimately we believe in the importance of working with companies, firstly to understand where they sit on the "conflict to collaboration scale" and secondly to understand where they want to get to.

With that in mind, we would love to hear what collaboration means for you. Let us know your definition....

What does your average day look like?

So, it turns out that the average office worker has disagreements with their colleagues 1.06 times daily.  Who knew!

If you can get your head round that .06 part, then that means that every person in every office has to deal with workplace conflict (of varying degrees of course!) every single working day.  Now this could be anything from who's making the next round of teas (the average person drinks 3 cups per day if you were interested), to more serious personality clashes and even formal complaints.

But the good news?  It seems that HR are an upbeat kind of crowd with 60% of HR professionals telling researchers they were happy in their job.

New Year memo to self - boost employee health and wellbeing

Christmas is coming fast and with it that annual angel/demon where you are already forgiving yourself for indulging two sizes in the wrong direction with the promise that starting Jan 1st you really honestly will do something about your health.

Of course, businesses do this too. They get to the end of the year, worked and at the moment increasingly partied out, and in the back of their minds they take stock and make very real commitments to making 2012 different, to focusing on improving the health and wellbeing of the bottom line.

Question is, is there a link? Between commitments to improving the health of your business and your own personal vows? I don’t mean, would your business survive next year if you had to be winched out of your bedroom by a crane in January (although that might do it). When I mean health, I also mean psychological and physical health. I mean would the wellbeing of your business be measurably improved if the business and you the employee (whatever your role) made it an explicit targeted measurable goal to make the business more healthy by making everyone in it more healthy?

Put it this way. What if your business sent you this email on Jan 1st:

Dear Max, (my dog’s name as it happens, but go with it)

Hope you had a really great Christmas and welcome back. To get things going – and staying – on the right track for 2012, we’ve decided to do things differently.

Firstly, we’ve decided that it is our business to create a working environment and give you a job that makes you healthy. That it is our business to care about your health and wellbeing, physical and mental. Not just in terms of nutritional food in the canteen, or improved crèche facilities, or marketing ourselves as a great place to work: we mean in the proactive removal of anything and EVERYTHING in your job negatively affecting your health and wellbeing.

So to get the ball rolling, we want to hear some very different New Year’s Resolutions.

• What health targets and plans and facilities we could offer that would make a difference to you (and your families)
• What things (people, processes, ways of doing things around here) that are getting in the way of making your job make you happy (that we can happily change)

Tell us – be honest - and we’ll tell you what we’ll do about it. As adults. Working together. In 2012, we’ll do our part – putting money and board air time where our mouth is – to make you smile when you come to work, to know that the work that you are doing here is the best work of your lives. If you want to work with us to achieve this, were with you all the way. The health of our business depends on it.

from HR

This is a little cheesy of course, but you get my point. Certainly much better than welcome back, can we meet to discuss your workload, cos we’ve got a shedload to get through.

For more on this, check out the free Collaborative Wellbeing – A People Resolutions New Year Manual.

Are your employees saying "Bah Humbug" to the xmas party?

So, it's almost December.  That time of year where everyone's thoughts begin to turn towards the 25th of December and all the Christmas celebrations leading up to it.  The office Christmas party is the regular event of the year for workers across the UK, but are you looking forward to it?  And more importantly are your employees?

The latest research from recruitment firm Monster, shows that 66% of staff do not look forward to office Christmas parties and would prefer to spend time with friends or family.  The most reluctant of countries surveyed was the Netherlands with 91% of them dreading their work Christmas party.

Elsewhere in the research, when given the choice of a Christmas party, a festive bonus, shopping vouchers or extra holiday, only 3% chose the party.  So with only 5 weeks to go until Christmas, it's already bah humbug to the humble office Xmas party.

Secret Santa anyone?

It's no day for a snow day!

When people think back to their working lives from winter 2010, one thing probably sticks out in a lot if people's memories.  The snow.  Or more accurately what the snow caused - 2 hours to make a 10 mile commute to work, being snowed in and dangerous driving conditions.  With the cost of snow related absence costing employers an estimated £2.2 billion, no-one wants a repeat this year.

However with weather forecasters predicting further snow this winter and some predicting it to be even worse than last year, now is the time for employers to make sure they have provisions in place to handle the effects of bad weather.

The legal stance for organisations regarding whether an employee is entitled to be paid when they are unable to attend work due to adverse weather such as heavy snow is neither simple or straight forward. Find out more about the requirements to a robust adverse weather policy here.

IBM appoints first female President and CEO

In another great step for women in business, IBM has appointed Virginia ‘Ginni’ Rometty as the first female president and chief executive officer.

The news says that she was also elected a member of the board of directors, effective at that time. Rometty is currently IBM senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy and will succeed Samuel Palmisano, who currently is IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer in January.

Whilst this is great news, it brings with it a realisation that this is an unusual and sensational.  Is that a good thing? Should it come as a massive shock to the business world that this obviously talented woman has been given such a prestigious job in one of the largest organisations in the world?