This article provides solutions on how to solve conflicts amongst employees. Learn how to foster collaboration and diversity.
Organizations are made up of employees who differ in personal characteristics and experience. To be effective as an organization, those members must reach agreements on goals, make good decisions about how to achieve these goals, and help each other accomplish their activities – despite their differences. Being able to reconcile differences and handle conflict constructively is a key determinant of organizational performance.
There are different approaches you can use to reach a constructive conversation.
Difficult employees in the office can cause significant workplace conflict. There are characteristic behaviours to what is also called the “toxic employee”. Toxic employees are individuals who may work for you but can be dangerous to your business because of the problems they create in the workplace.
If everyone were fantastic at resolving conflict, the work would be a better place.
Where employees work and how employees work
As of late, employees and employers are not on the same page when it comes to work location.
The pandemic has proven that working remotely is not an eutopia. It can actually benefit employees and employers if managed properly. Remote work has become a definite perk to attract employees. Where they work and how they work must be the new lens of any employer.
The lens prescription is trust, care, transparency and freedom. These are your keys to foster solutions for transforming conflicts in development and cooperation. Give yourself some brainstorming time and be creative, you may find a new, strong, effective solution. It does not have to be a one-size-fits-all solution. Each employee carries a different personality. Their sensitivity levels to working onsite vary. Experiment solutions based on their personal preferences.
Give time its pace
Develop measurable criteria based on your experiments and impact on the profitability of your business. Measure what worked well and what didn’t provide the results anticipated. Ask your employees to provide feedback. Give time its space. Compare quarters financial results. Measure your employees’ productivity. Is your turnover rate improving? Are your employees happier? Is there more collaboration and less resistance to change?
Be ready to test other venues and re-evaluate. Again.
Embrace diversity
It is not a lip service. This is for real. Create non-threatening environments, develop language and tone to embrace diversity.
A recent study of Deloitte cited Diversity and inclusion as transformative forces. Deloitte’s research revealed that high-performing teams are both cognitively and demographically diverse.
At its highest point, inclusion is expressed as feeling “safe” to speak up without fear of embarrassment or retaliation, and when people feel “empowered” to grow and do one’s best work.
HR 4.0: moving from jobs to skills
In alignment with increasing collaboration, fostering diversity and imbedding these values into your company culture, moving from the traditional job descriptions to a skills set range required for your business, will definitely assist you with reorganizing your structure. It will help you with answering the following questions: who will be working remotely? Who will be working from the office? Who will be working in a hybrid environment?
In fact, defining the right skill sets required to do the job, will help you making the right decisions. I am not suggesting here to ditch the job descriptions and everything else that does with that practice. I am planting the seeds to help you look at the bigger picture.
Get out of the rut and cease being in conflict. Take a new look to the way you manage your people. Flex. Adjust, Evaluate.
