How to Handle Office Conflict
Conflict within any workplace is unavoidable and will have an impact on any business and its employees. Office conflict, in particular, is difficult when it arises, as office conflict presents a negative atmosphere within a very close setting where individuals are usually seated and working together in one space, which means conflict can affect everybody in the room even if they are not directly involved in the situation. This is why office conflict should be dealt with as soon as possible: to avoid any effects on productivity and positivity when it comes to the whole team environment.
Don’t Ignore It
The most crucial first step is to actually acknowledge the issue. Ignoring it or presuming that it will go away on its own could be damaging in the long run. Conflict, if left alone, can breed further negative feelings, and the situation may even escalate if it is not handled correctly as soon as possible.
Identify the Issue
In dealing with conflict, you need to understand what the conflict is explicitly about, and the individuals which it concerns. If you can easily see which team members are conflicted, then you can deal with the situation by speaking with those individuals privately in order to come to a solution.
Alternatively, if you are aware of conflict within the office environment, but are not entirely sure who it is between or what started it, you may want to conduct an informal investigation. This could be as simple as asking other employees if they have noticed anything or taking more time to pay attention to what is happening during the course of the day.
Take a Management Training Course
Professional training courses can help you to manage better any issues which may arise in a workplace environment, such as conflict, and help you to communicate better and build confidence when dealing with such a problem. Corporate Coach Group offer Leadership and Management training courses which can help you to learn valuable skills to manage a team of employees better, especially when dealing with conflict.
Invite Communication
It’s important to present yourself as a management figure who can be trusted and who is open to hearing from their employees. This means that, should conflict arise, individuals are more than likely to approach you with a problem. If you can sense conflict within the workplace, you could go out of your way to speak to the team as a whole first thing in the morning with a brief speech about how your door is always open should anybody be having any problems, for example. Hopefully, this will invite the conflicted individuals to speak to you privately about the issue.
Listen
If you’ve managed to identify the individuals involved in the conflict, it will not help if you get in a room together and simply tell them to snap out of it. Taking the time to listen to the reason why the conflict started in the first place may give valuable insight if it is an issue relating to the running of the business or an area which you have the power to improve in order to avoid future conflict.
