A recent report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) highlighted two important findings: a significant gap in conflict resolution skills and a marked divide between employers and employees.
Based on data from more than 2,000 employers and 5,000 employees in the UK, the report confirmed that conflict is a common occurrence in the workplace, with 25% of employees reporting that they have experienced conflict or abuse in the last 12 months. These statistics are neither unexpected nor unusual, as they back up a CIPD study from 2019, and align with our experience as workplace mediators and conflict management professionals.
What is surprising, however, is the significant disconnect between staff and leaders. While 75% of employers reported that employees feel confident raising issues, this confidence is not reflected in employee data. Among those experiencing conflict, only 17% felt confident in having an informal conversation with the person involved, and only 29% discussed their conflict with a manager or HR. Nearly half (47%) of surveyed employees said they took no action and ‘just let it go.’
When workplace conflict isn’t addressed, it impacts individuals, teams, and the wider organization. It can affect the health and well-being of individuals, reduce engagement, and decrease productivity. It sometimes leads to formal processes or legal cases, which are time-consuming and costly and never lead to the repair of a broken relationship.
One fundamental challenge for many organizations is that decision-making around conflict and the skills to manage or resolve disputes informally are often limited to a few people—HR teams or specialists, and in some cases, in-house mediators and conflict coaches. This means that the ‘power’ is held by the few rather than the many. If organizations want to shift their conflict culture, they need to look at different ways to upskill the workforce.
As an organizational leader looking to redress this imbalance, here’s how to democratize conflict skills within your organization:
Support line managers to resolve conflict
One of the CIPD report’s main findings is the crucial role of line managers. Although employers are confident in line management capability, nearly half agreed that managers can be a cause of conflict in their teams. Although managers are in a good position to help address conflict, they don’t always have the skills to manage it effectively.
Training managers in conflict resolution will allow them to nip conflict in the bud, develop better people management skills, and support stronger team relationships. By becoming more aware of their conflict style and communication preferences, managers can better understand where their behaviors could unintentionally contribute to conflict.
Prioritize conflict skills in organizational development
The next step in skills democratization is for leaders to recognize conflict proficiency as a strategic priority. Leaders need to understand the conflict picture in their organization by understanding employee feedback and ensuring that processes are in place to aid informal resolution, such as facilitation, internal mediation, and conflict coaching. The conflict culture is set by leaders who role-model constructive conflict behaviors and act on issues as soon as they arise.
This approach has many advantages for leaders, including reducing the costs of unresolved conflict and formal processes. Dealing with issues early decreases management time spent on disputes, meaning skilled resources can be deployed elsewhere.
Everybody benefits from having conflict management skills
Leaders set the direction, and line managers play a key role, but in a truly democratic workplace, everyone is empowered. People in conflict often cite feeling powerless, stuck, and reluctant to speak up for fear of consequences. If organizational processes solely rely on a small number of HR and conflict specialists to deal with challenging workplace relationships, this does not encourage the workforce to learn how to manage their difficulties. This partly explains why so many organizations are seeing a rise in formal processes; people expect someone else to sort things out for them because they don’t feel skilled or confident to do this on their own.
This is why training individuals across the whole organization to address conflict is where the opportunity lies. While it may be unrealistic to expect everyone to address issues directly themselves, providing support – such as online conflict resources, attending open-access online training, or speaking with someone about a conflict- enables people to act. And taking action gives a sense of control and personal agency.
Leaders often see the sharp end of conflict – the tribunal or legal case, the number of formal complaints, the percentage of churn, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For most organizations, the steps to close the skills gap are within reach. Organizations that democratize conflict skills will reduce the negative impact of unresolved conflict and benefit from the opportunities that constructive conflict brings, such as creativity and innovation, which helps to build future-fit employees.
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