Today’s workplace is an increasingly diverse environment with a melting pot of challenges and obstacles for organisations and leaders to navigate through. Technological breakthroughs, demographic shifts, the changing size distribution, the age profile of the world’s population and people working longer are all influential factors. As this state of flux continues the need for agility and adaptability seem to be the key to success.

Our working environment and the culture associated with it, is becoming increasingly more important with the focus turning more and more towards the workplace environment itself making interactions and experiences between colleagues a primary concern. Having the internal capability to deal with conflict at the root cause is proving an essential part of a manager’s toolkit.

Disputes in the workplace can drain resources, reduce productivity and most importantly cause disharmony and if left unresolved can lead to grievance or disciplinary procedures.

Most companies will have a benchmark for sensing their workplace climate by the number of formal grievances raised. What seems imperative however, is for leaders to enquire how much time managers are spending on dealing with conflict either between individuals or across dysfunctional teams.

The most effective way of dealing with any disagreement or conflict is to nip it in the bud and not allow it to fester. Conflict is an opportunity waiting to explode and usually stems from the need to change.

Most of us would agree that we don’t enjoy dealing with conflict. Having those difficult conversations very often feel extremely uncomfortable and unfortunately the longer it goes on, the worse it becomes. Once it has reached a point where an individual feels they need to escalate their complaint to  raising a formal grievance, the relationship has broken down and is then very difficult to restore.

Leaders and Managers need to be able to spot the signs quickly. Raising their emotional intelligence, taking time to get to know their teams and solving issues quickly is important. Having great conversations with employees and really listening to what is being said is equally as important. Asking the right questions at the right time allows you to understand what might be driving an individual and how they view of the world.

From my many years of mediation experience I can guarantee that the issue presented is not what is always appears, it is usually always something that may have happened years before and now lies at the heart of the matter.

Dealing with conflict early and effectively means that Managers need to be able to:

• Build relationships – get to know your team individually and make time.
• Actively listen – be in the moment.
• Have emotional intelligence – raise your self awareness.
• Having great conversations with employees – open questions.
• Give regular feedback on the behavioural element of people’s roles.
• Share your observations.

Although the future of dispute resolution in the work place remains uncertain, the potential to address tensions at an early stage has its obvious benefits and no doubt will impact upon employer practices for the better.