How to Prevent Conflict in the Workplace in England

Most employers will likely experience or observe conflict in the workplace. Your employees are all individuals, and naturally, they will disagree at times and clash. UK employers lose approximately £28.5 billion each year due to workplace conflict. However, it is essential to prevent conflict from occurring in your workplace. When you do not effectively manage relationships, the Health and Safety Executive state that this can result in higher sickness absence and lower productivity. Furthermore, failure to prevent workplace conflict may escalate to an employment tribunal with an aggrieved employee. This article will explain to you how to prevent conflict in the workplace. It will first explain what conflict is and then list some prevention approaches.

What is Conflict in the Workplace?

Workplace conflict can occur between an employee and an employer or between staff members. Conflict can arise when employees within your company disagree on approaching an issue. This can be a result of differences between your staff such as:

• personalities;
• backgrounds; and 
• beliefs.

Conflict can occur in many ways, but the primary type in the workplace is interpersonal conflict. In the workplace, this can be obvious such as:

• unacceptable language;
• discriminatory behaviour; and 
• bullying and harassment.

However, conflict can also be more subtle and difficult to spot, such as:

• failing to listen to other people’s views;
• interrupting people in meetings;
• ignoring others;
• being rude; and 
• poor personal hygiene.

Employer Preventing Workplace Conflict 

Conflict in the workplace is almost inevitable in most businesses with employees. However, you can put measures in place and take steps to try to prevent it from occurring. 

Conflict Management Policy

One way to prevent interpersonal conflict from occurring in your workplace is to have a conflict management policy. For example, this can state:

• that you strive for a positive work environment;
• that you value teamwork, fairness, and openness;
• how you deal with escalated conflict such as bullying and harassment;
• what management training you provide to learn how to address conflict; and 
• how your employees should raise concerns around conflict and unacceptable behaviour such as bullying or harassment.

Provide Training

As an employer, providing training for both your managers and more junior employees on conflict is a way to prevent it from occurring. Once your staff are more aware of the conflict in the workplace, they are more likely to avoid it or challenge it. Training for those who manage staff can cover ways to address conflict. Training for all employees can cover what standards you expect as an employer and how your business expects employees to raise conflict-related issues.

Encourage and Practice Positive Relationships

By encouraging your staff to have positive relationships, you can help prevent conflict from occurring in your workplace. You can do this by introducing new staff to your team early on and getting staff to discuss how each other prefers to work in terms of their style. In team meetings, you can talk to your employees about diversity and inclusion.

Furthermore, you can demonstrate positive working relationships with your staff by ensuring you act as a role model. This involves getting to know team members well, including how they wish to work, what makes them stressed, and their perception of themselves. This can help you sense when tension is brewing, help you spot where conflict occurs and enable you to prevent it. Also, where you spot inappropriate behaviour, you can set an example by challenging it.

Sound Communication

You can help prevent conflict in the workplace through good communication with your employees. Regular discussions and making opportunities for this enable your employees to raise concerns. You might discuss areas such as performance, and you can also remind staff of your expectations.

Review Your Processes

While implementing conflict prevention strategies is good, conflict may still occur if the policies are unsuitable. Therefore, you should review your methods regularly to test how well they work and identify gaps in the conflict prevention strategy. Reviewing your processes is also a process, so establish how you will go about this.

Key Takeaways

Whilst conflict in the workplace is natural, it is advisable to prevent this from occurring where possible. Consequences include as it can take up time and money and cause your employees to take time off as sickness absence. Conflict can be subtle such as interrupting others, but it can also escalate into behaviour such as discrimination or bullying, which could lead to an employment tribunal. You can prevent conflict by providing training to your managers on how to avoid it. Additionally, you may hold regular one-on-one meetings where both you and your employee have a chance to raise issues and concerns.

If you need help understanding how to prevent conflict in the workplace in England, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. So call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

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