What to Do in Response to Employee Conflict

People bring a wide variety of personalities and working styles to their jobs. In many ways, a diversity of opinion is healthy for collaboration, but can also lead to employee conflict. Companies that acknowledge this reality are better poised to approach conflict resolution proactively and creatively.

Approaching Employee Conflict With Empathy

The American Psychological Association defines empathy as “understanding a person from their frame of reference rather than one’s own, or vicariously experiencing that person’s feelings, perceptions, and thoughts.” In business relationships, we may not know each other’s deepest held beliefs like we do with friends or family. It’s still possible to try to understand how someone approaches a work problem based on past co-worker interactions, work they have produced, projects they have been passionate about, and work successes and failures. When the parties involved aren’t able to see the evidence, leaders can help with explanations or examples that provide this framework.

Cultivating empathy is one of the most valuable soft skills for employees to resolve problems themselves and for leadership or human resources managers to extend when providing mediation. Empathy is different than sympathy: empathy tries to imagine how it feels to be in someone’s shoes; sympathy feels pity for someone’s situation. Interactions motivated by empathy validate how the other person is feeling with sincerity. 

Validating phrases can look like “I can see why you chose to approach the project the way you did” or “I understand why my reaction made you upset” or “You have every right to be frustrated with how our collaboration is going.” Validation shows that a person’s feelings are appropriate, and may help someone who is angry or hurt to feel calmer and more ready to resolve conflict.

Empathy is only possible with good listening skills. Employees in conflict should be allowed to share their reasons and any underlying concerns. Company leaders can also encourage the employees to have empathy for themselves. Conflict with others can often result in shame and self-recrimination, which can contribute to further entrenchment. As long as there is no behavior that violates company policy, it’s likely that empathetically listening and validating can contribute greatly to conflict resolution.

Reject a Culture of “Othering” at Work

Othering is the phenomenon where individuals are categorized by how well they fit into the socially normalized group. This can happen across gender, race, language, socioeconomic class, education level, or age, among others. “This phenomenon often happens without conscious effort or even awareness,” says Kendra Cherry, MSEd, “[and] it often functions as an almost invisible barrier that keeps people who are seen as outsiders from accessing opportunity and acceptance.”

In the workplace, a culture of othering can contribute to feelings of judgment, jealousy, distrust, or rejection. Groups who wield the power in an organization can inadvertently create a culture where certain groups are publicly rewarded more than others, receive unequal work spaces or technology, or are excluded from benefits. Real or perceived hierarchies in the workplace can foster simmering conflicts that may turn into much bigger problems.

Combatting a culture of othering can include actions like:

• Thoughtful diversity and inclusion programs that aren’t just on paper, and include challenging unconscious and unintentional biases
• Recognizing individual employees in all departments for their contributions and accomplishments
• Awareness of divisive language, such as “male nurse”; common idioms that are stereotypical, like “gypped”; ableist language, like “crippled”. Many people don’t even realize that certain words may be offensive, and a company culture that promotes inclusive language can benefit everyone.
• Creating a safe and supportive workplace where employees can address their discomfort without fear of retribution

Be Creative With Solutions to Employee Conflict

Even with best intentions, corrective company culture initiatives, and education about empathy and validation, human beings will still likely experience conflicts at work. While companies can and should have general conflict resolution guidelines for mediators to follow, an approach that recognizes each conflict as unique can invite some creative approaches.

Identify the cause or causes of the conflict

The University of Oklahoma Department of Human Resources outlines some sources:

• Poor communication: Differing communication styles (e.g. one prefers email, one prefers meetings; one has a hard time explaining themselves clearly, one is a poor listener) can lead to misunderstandings or overlooked details. It can also keep the conflict inside the heads of each employee, where it can grow and fester.
• Different values: Some people are intrinsically motivated at work by their core values, and others don’t apply closely-held values in the same ways. Differing adherence to perceived values can produce resentment.
• Differing interests: Personal passions can influence the way people work; some actions may be in conflict with company policy or goals and cause conflict with workers who want to adhere to compay values.
• Scarcity: Employees may perceive there aren’t enough resources to go around, and experience restatement or jealousy when other employees seem to access more of what they want or need.
• Personality clashes: Most workplaces are staffed with people from all kinds of life situations who approach problem-solving in myriad ways. Irritation and frustration with differing philosophies is common.
• Poor performance: Some employees seem to get away with doing little to no work without repercussions, leading to resentment and anger from those who fill the gap. This can also be a source of conflict from managers who don’t get the results they expect.

Approach the problem with curiosity

“Research shows that curiosity brings a host of benefits,” writes Amy Gallo in the Harvard Business Review: “It wards off confirmation bias, prevents stereotyping, and helps us approach tough situations not with aggression (fight) or defensiveness (flight) but with creativity.” The trick is to clear your mind of “always” and “never” statements about someone: “Susan never explains what she wants” or “Greg always acts irritated with me.” When a mediator only sees the people before them as their perceived worst traits, it’s difficult to approach the conflict on the table with fresh eyes. Empathy and curiosity work together to identify the cause of people’s behavior, and what’s motivtaing the conflict this time, not influenced by any prior conflicts.

Break employee conflict patterns

Conflict specialist Jennifer Goldman-Weltzer suggests two mindset adjustments for effective resolutions. 

• Imagine your ideal future. “In recurring conflicts,” she writes, “we are typically focused on what happened in the past and who is to blame.” Imagining a future we want instead can take considerable effort and may take a letting go of past hurts and anger. It requires focus and imagination.
• Design a pattern-breaking path. This term coined by Goldman-Welzter is a linked, simple set of actionable steps “designed to interrupt the conflict pattern of the past.” It’s important to record these steps and the results to track how effective they are at changing the patterns.

Make organizational changes if necessary

If conflict persists despite everyone’s best efforts to apply productive resolution techniques, it may be necessary to make organizational changes. Where possible, changes should allow employees to retain current job and salary levels unless the reasons are performance-based.

• Separate employees in conflict by using remote work, if possible, either for a test period or permanently
• Change the reporting structure to remove direct work interaction
• Reassign projects
• Review changes at pre-determined intervals to ensure they were appropriate and offered resolution

Employee conflicts, while common, don’t have to result in long-term productivity and morale problems. By fostering a company culture that approaches conflict with empathy and inclusivity, you can find creative solutions to any conflict.