The workplace is often a high-stress situation and conflicts will arise. These disagreements can come up between employees, an employee and his boss or high-level people. Healthy conflict exists in most workplaces as employees debate and learn from each other’s different perspectives, disagree with respect and collaborate. Other types of conflict, such as bullying, harassment, discrimination, gossiping and undermining are damaging to the workplace.
No matter who the conflicts is between or what the cause is, continuing to escalate the disagreement or trying to resolve it pettily can harm the company and culture in the long run. The most productive way to handle it is to seek a mediator to help resolve the conflict in a neutral, unbiased way.
Workplace mediation offers the opportunity to improve employee morale and teamwork, achieve higher performance, productivity and profits, and retention of valuable employees. Mediation is recognized as a crucial and cost-effective tool towards resolving some of the most common and difficult interpersonal conflicts occurring in the workplace.
When Is Workplace Mediation Used?
Some common examples of situations where workplace conflict mediation works are:
- Communication breakdowns
- Personality clashes
- Relationship breakdown within a team
- Bullying and harassment
- Cultural misunderstandings due to different nationalities working in the same workplace
Mediation is a voluntary and confidential discussion by the relevant people about the issues in dispute, managed by an independent mediator. The discussion gives the participants an opportunity to be heard, and to hear what each other has to say. Effective workplace mediation will move employees away from hostility, and instead encourage them to engage in rational dialogue and work towards generating solutions.
The Benefits Of Workplace Mediation
There are many positive benefits that result from providing mediation as an option for resolving a workplace conflict:
- Specific disputes can be resolved with the resulting benefits to the parties involved and to their co-workers, team, and the organization as a whole.
- With the mediation option available, staff will be less likely to leave conflicts unresolved or avoid them.
- Parties in mediation learn more effective communication and problem solving skills that they can bring back to the workplace.
- Productivity and morale are enhanced by the resolution of specific disputes and by the knowledge and confidence that there is a way to resolve disputes when they arise.
- With the introduction of mediation into the corporate conflict management system, EEO complaints and lawsuits are significantly reduced.
- Mediation reduces overall outside litigation expenses and is more cost-effective
Don’t Avoid Workplace Conflict Resolution
Do not avoid the conflict, hoping it will go away. Even if the conflict appears to have been superficially put to rest, it will most likely come to the surface again whenever stress increases or a new disagreement occurs.
An unresolved conflict or interpersonal disagreement festers just under the surface in a work environment. The people who are affected by the conflict are not only the participants directly involved. The unresolved conflict has an impact on any employee who works with or who is associated with the employees who are in conflict. Everyone in the office and every employee with whom the conflicting employees interact with can be affected by the stress caused by the conflict and surrounding issues.
Employees may feel as if they are walking on eggshells in the presence of the antagonists. This contributes to the creation of a hostile work environment for other employees. In worst-case scenarios, the organization members take sides and your organization is divided.
Workplace Conflict Can Grow Out Of Control
Workplace conflict often involves a breakdown in communication between two employees or an employee and their supervisor. However, if left unresolved until the matter is taken to court, workplace conflict has the potential to escalate, making it nearly impossible to sustain collegial working relationships.
Litigation pits parties against each other, something that detracts from both the worker’s goals and the company’s business goals. Workplace mediation helps eliminate an adversarial relationship forming between the employee and his supervisor, and the employee and the organization. Mediation can resolve the conflict, repair broken working relationships and get the company back on track to meeting its organizational goals.
Berner Law & Mediation Group Can Help With Your Workplace Conflict In New York and New Jersey
Our New Jersey and New York lawyers and mediators have a sophisticated understanding of the complexities of interpersonal workplace disputes and their resolution. Our approach gives employees the opportunity to resolve their differences in a structured, fair and neutral environment. At the end of the process, everyone involved is better able to manage their working relationships, whether or not an agreement is reached.
At Berner Law & Mediation Group, we help employers resolve workplace conflict and complaints to build a positive culture in their work environment. Call us today to see how we can help you.
