Employee conflict is inevitable and is an inherent part in collaborative teams. Conflict occurs even in a remote work environment according to Officevibe and that conflict management is also quite a challenge. Officevibe’s user data found that around 21% of employees may be dishonest and non-transparent while interacting with their peers.
What causes workplace conflict?
- Unspecified roles and expectations of the team
Employees cannot perform effectively or efficiently if they do not understand their roles and what is expected of them. To achieve organizational performance, explicit job descriptions and expectations are deemed necessary.
- Trust and employee relationship issues
Conflict is a predetermined inevitability when there is a dearth of trust. Teams should be given time to develop trust, inclusivity, and dynamics to form positive relationships with their peers.
- Unclear collaborative instructions and work processes
Employees must be kept aligned with working hours, project workflows, and communicative tools. While employees should be receptive to work changes, a solid work process must exist so that work does not get haphazard.
As managers, how can you pinpoint the signs of employee conflict?
- Discern how your team members interact with one another and observe if collaborative rapport is present during meetings.
- Take note of the lack of participation where you notice employees are not being upfront about their opinions, perspectives, and grievances.
- Observe employees who habitually disagree and get into defensive mode. Note who starts or perpetuates arguments, interruptions, and miscommunication.
Be circumvent that you are not hasty to solve a problem. Not only you may misdiagnose the problem, but you also risk overlooking the root cause and the underbelly of the problem.
If undiagnosed and unaddressed, workplace conflicts will affect the performance of your company. At the same time, not all conflicts are negative; certain conflicts can be constructive and pave a way for betterment.
If you can diagnose which conflicts are detrimental to your company, you are halfway through resolving it. Effective management of employee conflict requires the correct assessment of problems. In collaboration with eCornell, Genashtim is proud to offer the Conflict Resolution program for you to master diagnosing workplace conflicts.
eCornell courses are approved by SkillsFuture Singapore for SkillsFuture Credit as well as by HRD Corp Malaysia under its SBL-Khas Scheme.