4 Important Reasons To Resolve Co-Worker Conflict

One of your employees does not get along with another however, they must work together on a daily basis. This can be one of the most difficult situations you will face with the team and one that must be addressed as soon as possible in order to avoid serious and damaging outcomes to the work environment.

Truthfully you probably do not want to have to intervene in every little disagreement that occurs since they are bound to occur from time to time. Nonetheless you do not want to let the major conflicts go unaddressed as the consequences can be very harmful to both the organization as a whole and the employees working there.

[bctt tweet=”Many managers are actually afraid to get involved in co-worker conflicts.” username=”bizmastersglobal”] Instead of identifying and employing a suitable conflict management technique, they tend to avoid the situation altogether. This is often a poor decision and can result in a bigger, more difficult problem to solve. However, many managers believe helping to resolve it will turn the resentment of the issue onto them, and then they might damage their relationship and communication capabilities with their team members.

The reasons that that you really must step in are the following:

[message type=”custom” width=”100%” start_color=”#F0F0F0 “ end_color=”#F0F0F0 “ border=”#BBBBBB” color=”#333333"]

1. Worker conflicts can create an “us vs. them” attitude within your team.
   When two employees are having problems with each other, others can feel it and may tend to be pulled into the “fray” and take sides. Yes, this behaviour belies emotional intelligence, however many adults are not immune to the effects of conflict in the workplace. Once the team becomes divided, a competition mindset is created and many will lose sight of what is actually best for the organization and winning or “beating” the other side will invade the culture. This sort of toxicity can impact negatively on the team’s productivity, efficiency, and creativity, which means that deadlines may be missed and goals not achieved. All of this can definitely impact negatively on the company’s success.
2. Worker conflicts can lower the performance of the employees involved.
   Conflict will rarely resolve itself, rather it tends to snowball or even escalate and ultimately affect the performance levels of the team members. Managers sometimes expect that the conflict will disappear when the employees tire of the situation. Sadly this is rarely the case as usually when team members do not care for one another, their focus will suffer, more absenteeism may occur and the quality of work will certainly be reduced as well. Again, all of this will result in a negative effect on the organization’s success.
3. Worker conflict can harm the company’s on-line brand.
   You must be aware of the possibility that employees could be blogging or tweeting about the work situation in a negative or complaining way. So unless there is a company policy prohibiting such practices, you need to understand the effect that co-worker conflict can have on your company’s online presence. While the employees may not mean to harm the company’s name, such negative online comments could discourage prospective candidates from applying for a job at the company as most do on-line research when considering a new position.
4. Worker conflict can result in a high turnover.
   Unhappy employees are not likely to want to stay with the company. So, unless the co-worker conflict is effectively managed, you can expect to see people leaving. This may not only be limited to those involved in the conflict, as others who are not even directly involved, may feel uncomfortable in what has become a toxic work environment filled with arguing and bad feelings…stressful for everyone! [/message][su_spacer]

The effects of worker conflict that is unaddressed can rapidly spiral out of control. It is, therefore, very important to make sure that you employ effective conflict management strategies so that these situations can be addressed quickly, as the delay can make it more difficult to resolve them satisfactorily and without serious fallout.

If you want to establish and maintain a positive, happy work environment that will encourage productivity, efficiency, and creativity, you must learn and exercise effective conflict management approaches to keep those disagreements and their effects on the work environment to a minimum.

[su_button url=”http://bizcatalyst360.com/free-execubriefs/" target=”blank” style=”stroked” background=”#ff4e07" color=”#ffffff” size=”1" wide=”yes” center=”yes” radius=”5" icon_color=”#2d3fff”]CLICK HERE FOR FRESH INSIGHTS DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX [/su_button]