Management experts estimate that most supervisors and managers spend as much as a quarter or more of their valuable work time managing conflicts. Workplace conflict may be based on disagreements over work procedures, different needs and interests, clashes of personalities, or a range of other situations and circumstances that lead to confrontations between or among employees.
What training do you give your supervisors for handling conflict within their team? How do you coach your employees to mitigate destructive conflict in the workplace?
When workplace conflict is not well managed, it is likely to have a destructive influence. Poorly managed conflict among employees may lead to:
- Reduced productivity
- Lower morale
- Increased absenteeism, as employees seek to avoid a hostile and uncomfortable work environment
- Greater turnover, as workers leave to find jobs in organizations where conflict is well managed
- The “wildfire” effect, with one conflict leading to others and spreading out of control within groups and between departments
- An increased potential for violence
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When your supervisors and managers know how to resolve workplace conflicts effectively, they can save time and turn potentially destructive situations into positive, productive opportunities for growth and development within their departments and work groups.
Additionally, when supervisors and managers know how to build consensus among employees, they can enhance motivation and cooperation as well as create an atmosphere in which agreement generally prevails over conflict.
The objectives of conflict management training, then, are to enable supervisors to be able to:
- Recognize the impact of workplace conflict.
- Identify common causes of conflict.
- Understand how positive communication helps prevent conflict.
- Resolve conflicts successfully.
- Build consensus among employees.
Legal Overview
There are no general employment laws or regulations that require you to train supervisors in conflict resolution and consensus building. However, when supervisors know how to manage conflict and build consensus among employees, you are more likely to avoid disputes with employees that can lead to discrimination complaints, wrongful discharge lawsuits, and other legal problems.
Training Requirements
Your conflict resolution and consensus building training program should contain, at a minimum, the following elements:
- Definition of conflict
- Benefits of well-managed workplace conflict
- Potential damage caused by poorly managed conflict
- Common causes of workplace conflict
- Basic options for addressing conflict
- Conflict assessment
- Communication skills that help prevent conflict
- Conflict resolution process
- Resolving recurring conflicts
- Mediating personality conflicts
- Definition of consensus building
- Importance of consensus building
- Basic building blocks for creating consensus
Common mistakes when trying to build consensus
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Training Frequency
Supervisors should be trained when they are hired or promoted into a supervisory position and periodically thereafter. Retraining is recommended whenever you detect increased levels of workplace conflict.
The above information comes from BLR’s presentation “Conflict Resolution and Consensus Building.”
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll look at 5 keys to prevent conflict in the first place—and we’ll introduce a dynamic video training program for supervisors available now.