How HR can handle office conflict

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HR teams have numerous roles to fulfil that go beyond recruitment and training, in fact, HR professionals spend 70% of their time handling office conflicts and disputes. Yet, according to a study titled Workplace Insight Report for Businesses 2018 by LegalZoom only 26% of employees believe that their employer is able to adequately handle office conflicts and workplace disputes.

More troubling is that according to the same report 15% of employees reported actually quitting a job because of workplace issues and 16% said they avoid reporting problems as they are afraid of backlash either from management or other employees.

However, that doesn't mean workers are keeping their feelings bottled inside. A third (33%) said they spoke to their colleagues, 22% said they keep a file detailing ongoing issues and 9% complained using social media.

The report by the legal site recommends an updated employee handbook that clearly defines the guidelines to follow when handling a workplace dispute so that workers know exactly where to go when reporting a problem.

The report showed that one in ten workers in the US reported that company procedures when reporting a dispute were never discussed with them and even those that said some sort of guidelines were discussed showed it to be minimal. 38% of workers said guidelines were circulated once a year and 16% of workers said procedures were only verbally discussed in large company meetings.

Proper communication can go a long way to avoiding legal trouble. Having a proper conversation about what is acceptable in the workplace can help lessen the risk to an employer when it comes to conflicts recommends LegalZoom. In other words, the sooner you can get all the guidelines on the table so that employees know where to go and who to speak too the easier it will be navigating problems later on.

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