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.