All businesses are looking for ways to create a positive working atmosphere. No matter what line of work you are in, a conflict that negatively impacts this atmosphere will arise sooner or later. Because it causes a negative impact on productivity, it is essential to take measures to prevent and reduce conflict in the workplace.
Let’s take a look at the most popular methods that will keep your workers conflict free. When it does occur, it should actually be constructive.
Harassment training for employees
When a company has less number of employees, people get to know each other faster. However, once the business starts growing and more people come on board, the chances of conflicts occurring start to increase.
Due to the fact that we come from different surroundings, perceptions, and experiences, we tend to have a different perspective about different things. These little differences are the primary reason why conflicts occur.
However, if you want to tackle the issue from the beginning, it is essential to take every employee through a harassment training process. This is going to allow you to get every team member through the process of understanding what is considered harassment and what are the things that he or she should avoid at all costs.
Communication training
Miscommunication is one of the leading factors that often result in conflict. Therefore, it is a good idea to also put employees through communication training using online courses. This is going to help them communicate their message the right way, thus greatly reducing the chances of a conflict coming up in the future.
If you notice a conflict occurring inside your business, you should definitely take this step, as people are going to become better at communication, listening, and understanding each other.
Once the miscommunication issues are resolved, you can expect your employees to greatly reduce the number of conflicts.
Team building
People who get a chance to know each other better are much less likely to run into a conflict. This is why establishing team building activities is a good idea. Organizing a relaxing work dinner, trip, or any other type of team building activity, there are higher chances that people working together get to know each other better.
During this process, people will start understanding how their team members communicated, what are their thoughts, ideas, hobbies, take on life, and so forth. This allows people to understand each other better and significantly reduces the chances of any conflict occurring in the future.
Establish a formal complaint system
We all live in a society that uses some kind of rules to keep everything peaceful. The same applies to your company.
If there is no way for a person to file a complaint, chances are that some are going to notice this and choose to start a conflict with other people more often. However, if there is a way in which someone can easily reach out to a higher authority formally, then the number of conflicts is going to be reduced right from the start.
Therefore, make sure that there is a complaint system as it will automatically remove unnecessary conflicts among your employees.
Introduce penalties
Setting up a complaint system without introducing penalties is pointless. Those who find conflict as the best way to communicate with others are going to always pick this approach, as there are not going to be any negative repercussions to their unacceptable behavior.
Create a clear set of punishable behaviors, which includes conflict, and define it completely. Every time when someone engaged in a conflict, he or she will think twice before getting involved in it.
Also, both parties should receive some type of penalty, as any argument requires two people. Taking this step will lead to the reduction in conflicting situations.
Conflict mediation training
This is the crucial part of the whole conflict reduction process. The manager responsible for the whole team should know everything there is to know about conflicts. They should undergo mediation training, communication, and conflict resolution training. This is going to put them in a place where they are going to be able to intervene appropriately and find the right solution to the conflict that other employees have started.
However, it is important that the leader is present during the mediation process, as he or she can more easily evaluate whether the manager is taking the right steps and not favoring anyone. This is crucial for long-term team productivity, as taking sides in a conflict can only create a series of new problems.
Therefore, besides providing training for your managers, it is crucial to hire those who have impeccable communication skills, as this will directly impact a number of conflicts occurring in the office.
Make the company priorities clear
Many people try to remove conflict without thinking about it as a mere symptom. Often, conflicts between your employees can be caused by something bad in your whole organisation. For example, if two people do not understand task priorities clearly, a conflict can easily occur.
Therefore, it is necessary to take a look at what was the conflict about, and what can you, as the business leader, do to remove it. If the conflict involved arguments about task priorities, make sure that all of the instructions are clear in the future and that people know what they should be focused on, instead of arguing.
This will also lead to higher productivity, as conflicting situations will be greatly reduced.
Conclusion
Since conflict is common to any workplace, hence in such a scenario, offering your employees with workplace harrasement training is the most effective way to deal with it. Nowadays, most employees are busy with meeting deadlines and targets, using an onlinetool can do wonders. This will let them undergo workplace harrasement training at their own pace from a location of their choice. After all, conflicts negatively impact the company’s productivity, and businesses should aim to reduce them.
