It's time for the ‘holy trinity’ of workplace stakeholders to bring harmony back to the UK, says David Liddle
The figures on conflict at work are shocking. According to recent reports from the CIPD, nearly 30 per cent of employees are trying to cope with ongoing conflict in the workplace, and 10 per cent of employees feel that they have to leave their job because of it.
As alarming as the reports are, the picture they paint is one that I am all too familiar with. Under the traditional, quasi-judicial, grievance system everyone is doing their very best to make things work. What they often don’t realise is the system itself is the problem. The structure of traditional conflict management is not only failing to solve problems satisfactorily, it is causing its own problems too. In far too many cases, grievance procedures encourage dispute escalation rather than dispute resolution.
It is time for a radical rethink of dispute resolution within our organisations. We need a new vernacular to define these issues and we urgently need a new way to handle and resolve them. With this, employers and employees have to learn to think differently.
Some evidence suggests that the resolution revolution has already begun. From the London council that recently replaced its entire grievance process with a resolution policy predicated on mediation, to the high street bank that reported savings of £450,000 in the first 10 weeks of its award winning resolution system being introduced. Large organisations, including Royal Mail, Marks & Spencer and BT are now resolving issues using dialogue and interest-based problem solving.
To move away from the limitations of the traditional grievance process, organisations need to develop and implement a resolution policy framework which makes it clear what is expected of managers and employees when it comes to conflict resolution. Managers and leaders should then be trained and supported in the ‘soft skills’ needed to manage people effectively – vital skills that are central to modern management and leadership.
As easy as it sounds, the fundamental principle of mediation is the need to talk and, just as important, the need to listen. It’s about building empathy and creating a shared understanding of a shared problem and one of the beauties of the mediation principle is that it is not for managers or HR professionals to find solutions, it’s simply to facilitate conversation.
Workable compromises that bring lasting solutions come from involving all sides very early on. That means bringing together the holy trinity of workplace stakeholders: HR, management and the unions.
Traditionally, managers are too busy to worry about grievances or they lack the pre-requisite training; HR professionals are trying to focus on the more positive side of their role or are too busy fire-fighting, and unions are often under pressure to represent their members’ interests in an uncompromising way. While each party’s interests should be mutually compatible and convergent, the reality is that the three are locked in a perpetual struggle and the employee often gets left out.
The best workplaces are those where HR professionals lead the resolution process but bring everyone else with them and engage them fully.