Causes of Workplace Conflict
Let’s face it.
Conflict in the workplace is inevitable when people with different experiences and priorities are put together.
Conflict can manifest overtly such as outright bullying and angry outbursts. It can also manifest less obviously as passive aggression, gossip and undermining someone’s reputation or work product.
The negative effects of workplace conflict can include work disruptions, decreased productivity (just think about all the wasted time trying to resolve conflicts between employees!), project failure, absenteeism, turnover, termination and even costly litigation.
More than half of employees in a recent survey have reported they have been the victim of abusive workplace conflict in the past year. Heightened tension over conflicting political views may be one cause of this increase.
Causes of workplace conflict, including:
- Personality differences.
- Inequities in treatment between employees - “playing favorites”.
- Un-clarified roles in the workplace.
- Putting a non-supervisory employee in a position of "supervising" another employee, thus creating resentment.
- A business slowdown or pending merger or a reduction in force.
- Poor communication, including misunderstood remarks and comments taken out of context.
- Cultural, gender, age or professional differences over work methods or goals.
At The Respectful Workplace we provide companies with programs to address these sources of conflict and help eliminate them to create positive work environments where employees feel valued, conflicts are quickly addressed in a positive and healthy manner and productivity and profits increase, and the risk of liability for expensive litigation decreases.
Come back for our next management tip on how to address conflict in the workplace.
Contact us for a free 30-minute assessment of your workplace culture to see if we can help your company mitigate the inconvenience and risks of workplace conflict and create that positive culture where good people want to work.
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