By Stephen D. Bruce, PHR
Editor, HR Daily Advisor
Our recent e-pinion from Dan Oswald about “what to do with employees who hate each other’ sparked considerable interest from readers, so much so that now there’s a second wave of comments to share.
Most of the comments react to the question of whether it makes more sense to fire both employees who don’t get along or to keep the one that contributes the most and fire the other.
Oswald’s original story is found here in The Oswald Letter. The full text of all the original reader comments is found here. Below are additional comments from the second round of readers’ e-pinions.
Too Much Time Wasted on Manure
Too much time is wasted on the manure, when you should be examining the feed. What caused the hatred and solve the problem. Creating a new problem only results in more manure.
Your Job Is Not High School
Employees should understand that their job is not high school and should be counseled that way. Are they going to fight each other after work in the parking lot or in the ladies restroom? One chance is all either should get. Second offenses should be immediate termination for both. Firing both would cause them to grow up and live in the real world.
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If You Can’t Get Along, We Don’t Have a Place for You
We often have had to deal with this situation. Our coaching is always the same—people need to respect each other and if they can’t get along we don’t have a place for either one. We have often had to tell very good people that it doesn’t matter how well you perform otherwise—if you can’t get along with each other both may be terminated.
Painful Process for Everyone
Did you reviewers not ‘read’ the entire article? Oswald clearly states you may have to lose both employees. He wasn’t advocating fire one and not the other. I’ve been in this position and I was willing to lose both. After a employee counseling session with both employees and being warned about the potential of both of them losing their jobs, they were able to work together in the short term. Eventually one employee’s behavior began to noticeably falter and I was able to document sufficiently and terminate her. It was a painful process for everyone involved.
Bring in a Professional Conflict Resolver
As I often teach in my Conflict resolution workshops, all conflicts will be resolved, sooner or later, and for better or worse; an H-bomb, metaphorical or real, may be one person’s preferred resolution. So make sure you know all the options out there.
Oswald’s commentary and solution may reflect his experience, yet is merely the easy solution, not the only one, and certainly may not be in the best interests of the organization. Over my 20 years as an organizational mediator, I had many client-employees who thought, and said to me, that they hated a co-worker, or even a group of people they worked with. However, as many of your readers have indicated, there are many options which may prove more effective than termination. In fact, termination should only be used as the last resort. It is a demonstrated fact that when conflict blossoms in an organizational setting, there is significant fall-out. There are also many studies which have proved that power used indiscriminately does little to motivate staff, and certainly hampers creativity and innovation, both necessary attributes of any successful organization.
I would suggest that next time interpersonal conflict gets in the way of your organizational goals and objectives, bring in someone with the knowledge, experience, and expertise to get to the root of the problems, be they psycho-dynamic or systemic. I don’t mean that HR person with 21 hours of training; I mean the professional conflict resolver. You wouldn’t have your plumber perform heart surgery on a loved one; so why would you choose to settle for the ‘easy’ when dealing with the well-being of your organization. Finally, it pays to remember Einstein’s aphorism paraphrased here; functional insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different outcomes. This truth applies equally to individuals, to groups, and to organizations.
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Why Would I Terminate Both?
We are in the midst of this very situation, now. Counseling through conflict resolution has yielded one who recognizes the issue, is listening/participating and taking progressive ownership as awareness develops while the other strays to unrelated topics, stays with the derogatory, accusatory and disruptive comments. Both are fulfilling job requirements and valuable from an operational perspective. However, it appears "the other" may not make it through the resolution process.
The well-being of our organization is strongly affected by the unwilling participant who fuels dissention. Definitely not "merely easy" as we work through and may have to make the decision to terminate. I clearly see Dan’s point knowing that the obvious resides in his statement: keep both if at all possible and use professional resolution options. Then, if necessary don’t waver, make the decision. Why would I terminate both?
“How about you, readers? Do you have any advice for HR professionals dealing with similar situations? You can share your comments here.
Thanks to all for your responses—and best wishes for the day when you face two employees who hate each other.
Interesting comments. It seems like the only universal point of agreement is that this is a difficult, patience-trying situation for HR, however it winds up being resolved.