What business owner doesn’t want to increase productivity? A more productive team leads to greater success. One key to more productivity is building a better workplace. And you do that by keeping conflict to a minimum. Of course, it’s natural for workplace relationships, like any relationship, to have some conflict. It goes against human nature to not have conflict and one way to avoid conflict is with clear rules and procedures (which is something the VersaTel Solutions HR experts can help you with.)
But, even though conflict may be inevitable, the amount of conflict and the way conflict is handled by your company is important. Diane H. Wong of Business2Community writes, “Understanding conflicts and knowing how to deal with them positively and resolve them can bring many benefits for an organization. Conflict could completely undermine a team’s performance or can be used as a team-building opportunity that, if done successfully, can bring together disparate team members.” Wong says, you should “demonstrate consensus building, respect for the ideas and feelings of team members, and effective communication and listening skills in a team setting.” Here are the steps she suggests:
- Collaborate and establish common project expectations which help achieve a shared interest and create a collective buy into the final goal of timely project completion;
- Have respect and dignity for each team member and their ideas and personalities in all communication and interactions;
- Ownership and accountability of team progress and success by every team member are important keys;
- Encouragement of new ideas and innovative ways to reach our goal (even if they are unconventional).
- Ask and answer any questions and concerns raised by the team will incorporate any additional feedback that comes up in team discussion into collective teamwork framework model;
- Clearly outline projects milestones, timelines, and distribution of primary responsibilities, while emphasizing that the whole team has to support and help each other as all succeed or fail together;
- Among other important steps – to motivate all team members and give rewards. Using the concept of offering rewards, bonuses, and positive feedback for each team member would help to motivate them for greater individual and overall team performance.
Not all of these tips will fit with every situation. But, if you strive to include them at your workplace, you should see less conflict. We’d love to know which of these steps you plan to take, or which ones you already use that make your business run smoothly. And if you need written rules and procedures that will help your employees know what is expected of them, reach out to us at VersaTel Solutions. We’ll work with you to reduce workplace conflict.