Into the battle zone of workplace conflict

By ASHLEY CAMPBELL


Imagine you have two highly skilled managers with different management styles. One, let's call him Jeremy, is highly autocratic, expecting instructions to be precisely followed.

The other, let's call her Kim, is more flexible, encouraging staff to co-operate and innovate, intervening only when necessary. Their areas of responsibility overlap.

Jeremy, who believes Kim's style is undermining his authority, made his concerns known some time ago. You let it slide, thinking he'd get used to it but they now seem locked in an intractable territorial dispute.

At first the staff viewed the hostility as an excuse for office gossip. But the continuing tension is making them nervous, affecting productivity.

Now Kim is so stressed by the conflict that she is seriously considering leaving. You don't want her to go, but Jeremy is equally valuable to the company. What do you do?

Typically, too little too late, guesses the Employment Relations Service's chief mediator, Stephen Hooper.

While no workplace is immune from conflict, too often managers avoid dealing with it, hoping it will go away by itself.

"If you avoid conflict, it will generally resurface in another form," Hooper says.

Once the service was called in to deal with a conflict six years in the making.

"It had just drifted, and once conflicts drift, you are in serious trouble," he says. "People can't remember what this thing was all about, which makes it harder to address. To address it you have to get to the real issues, and six years on, no one really knows what they are."

The mediation service deals with about 10,000 workplace conflicts a year - many of them between employers and employees, but also conflicts between colleagues. And Hooper laments that mediators are too seldom called in early.

In an ideal world, he says, one-third of the cases would be early intervention, one-third would be educative, and only one-third would be at the personal grievance stage. In reality, 5 to 10 per cent involve early intervention, about 10 per cent involve collective disputes, and most of the rest are disputes that have escalated to personal grievance stage.

Workplace conflicts are like spiders' webs, says Hooper, made up of many strands. But more often than not, those involved will characterise them in terms of personality or communication issues. You know the sort of thing: "He never listens to what I have to say" or "She always answers back".

They also go through distinct stages.

Peter Elder, a human resources consultant with the Employers and Manufacturers Association, says that often the first sign something is wrong occurs when someone becomes quiet and withdrawn, avoiding interaction with another person.

Then the parties start talking about each other, rather than to each other. Because they won't be saying nice things about each other, factions form around the protagonists as confidants constantly hear just one side of the story.

Before long, the parties will be calling meetings from which they exclude one another and making decisions behind closed doors. Communication will become more indirect - by memo or email, rather than face-to-face - and the parties won't be able to remember anything about each other that doesn't exemplify the conflict.

Once open warfare breaks out, you have a serious workplace problem. As well as decreasing productivity you're also likely to see increased staff turnover as those who can't be bothered with this atmosphere - often the very people you want to keep - vote with their feet.

Now, says Hooper, you really have to call in outside help if you haven't done so before.

There are two good reasons for getting outside help, rather than trying to deal with it internally.

"The advantage of having independent people is that, for a start, they can sometimes see the broader, systemic problems which the boss might not be able to see," says Hooper.

And there will be such problems - conflicts develop only if the work environment somehow nurtures them. At the very least, the work environment allows them to happen.

Secondly, says Hooper, there could be legal issues in managers investigating problems that they have become part of.

The Employment Relations Service is one organisation that can help. The advantage is that it's free, but the disadvantage is that because its resources are limited it can't offer long-term help when deep-rooted structural issues - unclear reporting structures, a culture of blame and mistrust, indifferent management - have been feeding the conflict.

On the other hand, private consultants such as Elder may be costly, but they can hang around to help with the long-term issues. Shifting workplace culture so that it no longer feeds, or even tolerates, conflict takes at least 12 months, he says. "There's no short, quick fix to that one."

Private consultants can also try innovative approaches - restorative justice in the workplace, anyone?

That's just what Fiona Landon and her colleagues at Workplace Conferencing offer. The principle is the same as restorative justice in the court system - bringing people together to explore the effects of their behaviour on others and agree on solutions.

It starts, says Landon, when a facilitator discusses with managers the issues behind the conflict, who is involved, who witnesses it and who might see a different side of the protagonists.

This last group can be crucial in solving the conflict, says Landon, as they can often reach the main players with words along the lines of "Come on, mate, you're a good guy, but you really need to sort this out, it's not working."

Once the facilitator has heard everyone's take on events and relayed back to management the picture that emerges it's conference time.

Usually involving six to 10 people and taking half a day, this conference has rules: every person speaks uninterrupted; they talk about the problem behaviour and its effects rather than about personalities; and hearsay is not allowed.

Management addresses any structural issues and the group then focuses on what needs to happen to repair the harm and how that could happen.

"Where we come to agreements, they are recorded as agreements, typed up and signed off by everyone present," says Landon.

"Usually one of the agreements is how it's going to be communicated to the rest of the staff."

Other agreements will involve what steps the warring parties will take towards a more professional working relationship and when they will take them.

Which brings us to another problem with workplace conflict: Managers often feel their hands are tied in disciplining workers who aren't getting on with each other.

But once the harmful behaviours and the actions needed to stop them are identified, those behaviours and actions become measurable performance issues. At the very least, the protagonists now know there will be consequences if they don't change.

Following up - ensuring those steps are taken and giving a helping hand over stumbling blocks - is essential, no matter whether you use Workplace Conferencing or a more traditional mediation approach. As Hooper says, "People rarely go from a big conflict to a big solution. There is going to be a need for relapse prevention."

But usually, says Elder, you will find a solution so that even if the individuals still don't like each other, they can work together productively.

"Nine times out of 10, you definitely can sort the parties out. Sometimes, in organisations that are big enough, you can separate them."

But in some deep-rooted conflicts people can't be moved and the behaviours have become so entrenched they can't be changed - or will take so long to change that the business can't afford to wait.

Someone will have to go. The question is who?


Find more information on resolving workplace disputes at Employment Relations Service
Workplace conferencing
EMA