Oh, Behave — 10 Tips to Resolve Employee Conflicts
Put many different people together in one place, day after
day after day, and conflicts are bound to happen. Most
people work them out on their own, but what happens when
the conflict doesn’t go away and threatens the productivity
of your entire staff or team?
We’ve all seen it – Mary isn’t speaking to Susan; Ted and
Tom can’t be put on the same project; Bill goes behind
Karen’s back and “forgets” to include her in project
discussions. Some days, it’s like working in a
kindergarten. As the manager, what is your role in
resolving workplace conflicts?
The knee-jerk response of most managers is to overlook the
conflict, in the hopes that it will go away. After all, we
think, these people are adults; I shouldn’t have to tell
them how to behave.
Unfortunately, left alone, a workplace conflict can fester
and grow out of proportion until it takes on a life of its
own and all-out war is declared. Other employees take sides
and the conflict becomes more important that getting the
job done.
Here are some tips to control potentially damaging
conflicts before they escalate.
1. Set standards. Make sure you have a written set of
standards for workplace behavior and conduct. That way,
employees know what’s expected of them right up front.
2. Don’t ignore rule-breakers. If workers continue to
bicker, argue and backstab, call them on it immediately.
Discuss it privately, but make sure the transgressors know
that their conduct is unacceptable. Get a commitment from
them to not engage in the behavior in the future.
3. Be the boss, not the therapist. You’re right – these
people are adults. Resist the temptation to solve their
issues for them and throw it right back in their laps. Tell
them they’re responsible for working out their own
problems. Offer some tips or suggestions when appropriate,
but make it clear that you expect them to fix the problem
themselves.
4. Walk the walk. Your employees will take their cues from
you. If you refrain from getting all heated up over small
issues, and you maintain your good humor and reasonable
attitude at all times, your employees will follow your lead.
5. Sweeten the pot. Reward team performance and watch the
other team members ride herd on the miscreants. There’s
nothing like a bonus to make normally combative workers
band together to reach a special goal.
6. The final solution. If the fighting continues, draw a
line in the sand. Make it clear to all parties involved
that the work is suffering and you won’t tolerate that.
Their options are clear: they need to work it out, let it
go, or their job is going to be in jeopardy.
The bottom line is, you’re the boss. You don’t have the
time to spend settling employee spats. If the combatants
refuse to play nice, eventually one (or both) of them is
going to have to go, for the good of the organization.
—————————————————-
Joan Schramm, the Workplace Solutions Expert, is a career,
executive and personal coach with twenty years experience
in management, training and coaching. Joan can work with
you to figure out exactly what you want from your life and
your career, and how to get there without a lot of detours.
For more information, or to talk about what’s going on in
your life, go to:
http://www.achieve-momentum.com
It very much sounds to me as if the writer of this article has always been in a position of authority most of his life. It seems like you are not willing at all to listen to the serious work place issues, and most of all don’t know or don’t care about who is backstabbing who. It usually means you have never been severely and unfairly backstabbing yourself, and that you don’t understand that its not on that some innocent,hardworking person gets a bad reference as a result of an insecure,very selfish rat race conqueror.
The other options are you don’t care about your employees ,or about justice at all, or to the extreme perhaps you are/were a backstabber yourself and support behavior like that?
People are not Usually back stabbed because they have done something wrong.Majority of cases its because one or two people in a company think they have to backs tab to make themselves look better than their competition.People like that cause all apples in the basket to rot and cause the entire work environment and productivity to do down drastically.
Employees have no respect for a boss who doesn’t at the very least take a little time to find out whats going on , when someone wants to adres the issue.I am not saying at all a boss should get involved, but it is very much your business who is the rotten apple, in case you don’t realize it , they are costing your company lots of money.Word will go around about a boss that just thinks about himself and not about the well fair of the majority of the employees.Dont you talk to your partner and friends about work? Of course if you could not air negativity anywhere, anybody would go insane.Only thinking about yourself and seeing employees as replaceable is not emotional intelligence. Its selfish thinking that leads to karma of some sort or another.
Pretending to care wont help either. People see through this immediately.
There are lots of helpful tips on how to handle backstabbers and you should look at the net for some advice.It will also tell you what the typical things are they do , and what profile they have. Problem is they are so subtle and manipulative ,it can take ages to spot who the culprits are. Yet, I am telling you rather invest time in getting rid of the bad apple instead of just telling the employees off. Its very frustrating being a hard and very capable worker , and then having a super ego ruin your life ,your references and your reputation. How would you feel if this happens to you, and falls on deaf ears by the boss?Treat other people the way you want to be treated.
Ways to help avoid backstabbing:
Sorry to say but because of some people: Avoid as much team work as possible. Encourage everybody to do their own project from start to finish. This way the people that are under the illusion it will get them ahead to back stab others, will have it much more difficult to do so.
Encourage all employees to at all times double check their work, especially if it is some sort of teamwork!
Alot of backstabbers withhold information to gain a competitive edge. Do the training yourself and make sure that everybody knows everything.
Employees should never ,ever let the other employees know too much about them.
The backstabber is always at the lookout of finding something that can fuel fire.