Human Resources 101

If you supervise employees, you will have to deal with disagreements between employees. How you resolve these issues will be a key factor in how employees perceive your management skills.

Here are six important steps to remember the next time you have to resolve an employee disagreement.

1. Listen to all parties in order to get the facts. Listen to how they feel, what they want, and how they have arrived at the present impasse.
2. Remain objective. Letting people express their feelings and opinions will disperse stress and will help move the process forward. Keep those involved focused on the present situation, not old grievances, history or grudges. The objective of resolving conflict is to gather as much information as possible. As a manager you draw the parties into the process so that they feel connected.
3. Ask questions: What is required to resolve the disagreement? Are they willing to discuss it? Are they able to see each other’s point of view?

   Help them get to the root cause. You will be unable to resolve the conflict without understanding the cause. If appropriate, refer employees back to company procedures and policies or job responsibilities, as behaviour guidelines.

   Giving feedback is easy when it’s positive. We tend to shy away from giving negative feedback is negative.

4. State the desired outcome. Ask each participant involved in the disagreement for specific suggestions on how to accomplish the desired outcome. The ultimate goal is permanent solutions.
5. Get consensus. Resolution comes by having all parties arrive at a satisfactory agreement. Work through specific solutions until you have consensus.
6. Monitor success of the resolution. Check the progress regularly.

Expectations that are not met, personality clashes, and uncooperative coworkers are among the primary causes of conflict on the job. Without an effective resolution process, a workgroup will not have high success. Developing good conflict resolution skills should be high on the supervisor’s list of priorities.

Consider…

Without the benefits of an effective process for resolving disagreements, job-centred friction will harm relationships and drive people apart. My experience has shown, the most skilled and capable employees will be the first to leave a stressful, conflict ridden workplace. How it would impact your workgroup to have your best people leave in search of peace and harmony somewhere else?