Coffee Talk: Workplace Conflict: Why It Happens and How to Address it Effectively

us for Ramon's— let me restart. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Ramon's Coffee Talk today. I'm Christine Whitnaven, Senior Human Capital Business Advisor at Ramon, and I'm thrilled to welcome all of you to this insightful session on the topic of workplace conflict. Conflict in the workplace is something every organization faces, but addressing it effectively and learning how to maintain a positive and productive work environment is what we achieve. Today, we will explore this topic from multiple angles to equip you with insights and strategies that can make a difference. Today, we have the pleasure of hearing from 3 exceptional professionals who will help us understand what workplace conflict is, its causes, its impacts, resolution strategies, and finally, best practices for prevention. Joining us today are Scott Raber and Jennifer Duffy, employment law partners at Ramone. Along with our talented Human Capital Business Advisor, Barbara DiMatteo. I encourage you all to continue to engage with us throughout this session, and we do have a Q&A portal for you to address any questions you may have. If we can't get to all of the questions at the end of the session, we will definitely be emailing you the information and answers to your questions after the presentation. Now, before we dive in, please note that today's discussion does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship Also remember that past outcomes do not guarantee future results. Now, I want to jump right into today's topic. We'll start with Scott, who's going to be guiding us through the basics, what to expect, what exactly workplace conflict is, and what are the typical ingredients and how and when does this arise. Hi, Scott.

Good morning. Thanks for having me. So first of all, I guess the first question is, yeah, what are we talking about when we're talking about conflict? I mean, conflict in the workplace, as you might guess, it's not all the same and it's not all bad necessarily. What we're most concerned about today is when healthy debate veers off into something that creates an unproductive workforce or at worst, the legal exposure. So really the way we think about it as employment attorneys, and imagine Barbara the same way, is conduct that goes beyond a healthy dispute becomes interpersonal, has nothing to do with the tasks at hand, attacks someone's characteristics. It can be unproductive or demeaning leadership, unproductive or unhealthy interactions with others, abusive behavior. I get a lot of calls about bullying. Is bullying illegal and so forth? And people suffering from it or trying to do something about it. Passive-aggressive behaviors are sort of creating unrealistic expectations and setting people up to fail, things that sometimes we would refer to as constructive terminations so that the person can't possibly succeed. You know, what are the reasons? I think you all probably can take a pretty good guess. You know, we have fairly diverse workforces in this country, you know, from ethnicity, religion, age, et cetera. Bring people together, they often sometimes have, biases that come out in the workplace, whether they recognize it or not. Implicit bias is a real thing. We all suffer from it. You have preconceived notions in how you approach people, and that leads to poor interactions sometimes. Practically, team members will have differing goals, or managers will have differing goals or objectives about what should get done, how it gets done. You know, practical things like how do you prioritize? How are you spending your time? Unclear job responsibilities is often another where people aren't really clear what they're supposed to be doing, or their duties change over time so that there becomes confusion and interpersonal disputes. Stress is a big one, both outside and within the company. So, you know, if a company, for example, is suffering economic uncertainty, that can filter down and cause issues among managers and rank and file. And frankly, outside employees bringing that in as well. And then, you know, gossip, things like that. Just anywhere where people are allowed to do interact, these issues are going to arise. And if unchecked or go off in unproductive ways, become an issue.

Thank you, Scott. Now we want to bring in Barbara. I want to talk about the causes and triggers that spark the conflict. Barbara, can you elaborate on that for us?

No, sure, Ken, and thank you for having me. So conflicts arise very often when there is disagreement over responsibility, something that Scott mentioned. Who should do what and how things should be done. Very often there are no clear and current job descriptions which describe the responsibilities of each individual. And where sometimes there may be written or verbal responsibilities that have been communicated, they often are not following the SMART, S-M-A-R-T, acronym. Leaving a lot to interpretation and assumption. SMART refers to Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound, and this acronym has served individuals and companies very well over time and has reduced workplace conflicts because work expectations are very clear. Conflicts also often arise due to differing priorities. For example, if my focus is on process while your focus is on people, our approaches and actions to our priorities are likely going to differ, leading to challenging and frustrating conversations. Another common source of conflict is differences in work pace. What may seem very urgent to one person may not be as urgent to the other. And when conflicts arise, management typically do not step in to set the priorities nor to set the specific time deadline for work or project completion, which is smart. Instead, managers leave it up to the two individuals to sort it out, and it creates conflict. Now, conflict also arises because individuals have not been trained on how to learn about others' predictable behavioral styles and the value that each style brings to the table. Many conflicts arise because individuals think one person is right and the other one is wrong. Instead, if co-workers were able to really see that we bring our own valuable perspectives to the situations and we appreciate and value those differing perspectives, we can create more meaningful outcomes in our work. A valuable and insightful tool I use in my management and executive coaching and leadership training is DiSC, which helps us identify the predictable behaviors of other people's styles, and then we learn why and how to adapt our conversation for better communication. Conflicts also arise when people misinterpret others' intentions. This often comes down to making assumptions, quote unquote. We all know the pitfalls of that word assume. And when one assumes, it leads to us finishing other people's conversations and sentences without giving them a chance to fully express themselves. When one assumes, the SMART expectations that I talked about before are not defined, leaving individuals to believe that the parties are on the same page with respect to what will get done and when. And often assumptions are rooted in the belief that others view the world in the same way that we do, which is rarely the case. Lastly, individuals do not listen, really listen to one another. We tend not to listen with the intent to understand, and our bodies actually tell us to listen twice as long as we speak. That's why we have two ears and one mouth. And if individuals in conflict were able to listen clarify and confirm what the other said to ensure a comprehensive and complete understanding. It can tend to eliminate the word assume and lead to less conflicts.

Thank you, Barbara. I want to bring Jen into the discussion so we can start looking at what creates workplace conflict. Jen, can you provide us with some examples of the situations that do create that conflict?

Sure. Uh, good morning everyone. Thank you for attending. Um, So what I wanna talk about is some of the issues that happen with ongoing conflict in the workplace. The first is decreased productivity by employees. They are either on one hand overwhelmed and can't work as productively, or they choose not to work productively. But either way, you have a decreased productivity. You also can see increased absenteeism. This is avoidance of the conflicts at work. It is easier to stay home and ignore than be at the office, and this has an adverse impact on everyone else who needs to pick up the slack. Another issue with ongoing conflict in the workplace is workers' compensation and disability claims for stress-related illnesses. So most employers are not aware that there can be workers' comp stress claims. Most employers employers think that they are just physical injuries, trips and falls, you know, a hand caught in a machine, those kinds of things. But there is a whole area of workers' comp, especially in California, that deals with stress claims. And conflict at work can very much impact people's anxiety and stress. The next issue that happens with ongoing conflict is high turnover. People do not stay in a high-conflict workplace. Some do, but there's usually high turnover. And if you see that happening in your workplace, it's time to figure out why. This is a tremendous cost to employers each year to have to seek out, hire, and train new people over and over again. The next issue that I see is substance abuse. Now, most of the time we don't see this because the employee is doing it outside of work, but that can then affect productivity and attendance. So there's a cycle going on. And I've also seen many times people who are in a workplace where they are not comfortable drinking at lunch or coming back after work and doing a little bit more work after they've had a couple drinks. And those are indicators of some pretty serious issues. And then the last issue that I see with ongoing conflict, in addition to the fact that it takes so much of HR's time in dealing with conflict, is the horrible consequence of workplace violence. Sometimes conflict at work does lead to workplace violence, including murders. And this is horrific. Obviously, that's an extreme reaction, but we are well aware that it happens. So that in general are the 6 topics of what I generally see with ongoing conflict in the workplace.

Thank you, Jennifer. Now that we have an understanding of exactly what workplace conflict is and the ingredients and some of the examples that Jen just shared, Barbara, I want to turn to you and see what you can provide to us in the form of solutions to these issues that are happening.

So some of the things that we need to think about is that workplace conflicts manifest themselves, as Jen said, in a number of different ways, such as insults, lack of cooperation, bullying, anger. The negative impacts of conflict can reflect in reduced productivity, lower motivation, higher litigation costs, absenteeism, reduced productivity, increased stress. But not all conflict is detrimental. In fact, a certain level of disagreement is both natural and actually healthy if it's done well. And the most successful teams are those where members feel safe to express differing opinions and come to empowering solutions and conclusions. So you're asking about some solutions, and I've got 5. First off, understand why there is conflict and engage in a conversation to come to a resolution. Define and document the problematic behaviors from each individual and how these behaviors are impacting the team in the workplace. Number 2, each individual has to be accountable for their actions and interactions with the person in conflict. This may mean changing behaviors towards the other person's pace or priority and to do this in a genuine manner. Number 3, both parties must agree to work towards resolution or conflict is just going to continue. These agreements are to be documented and then each individual's behaviors are to be measured against established goals. There should be written repercussions when the behaviors don't change. Number 4, a meeting should be scheduled with both individuals and a facilitator outlining a meeting that ensures mutual respect and active listening. Neither person should be allowed to talk over the other. We should ensure that each person has equal time to express themselves and then restate what was said because it's important to confirm and clarify what each individual is communicating and committing to. A written action plan and document should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Otherwise, it leads to assumptions, which is not going to work. Lastly, these action plans should be brainstormed and documented with ongoing follow-ups that go beyond a single check-in after a week or two. It's important to assess how both individuals are working together. Ongoing to achieve better results and measure and document the change in behaviors, the results, and have follow-up meetings individually and together to discuss accomplishments, wins, and to address additional continued challenges.

Thank you, Barbara. We certainly see the implications that workplace conflict has on the organization. But Scott, I want to bring you in to talk about and highlight some of that, the human resource aspects and legal implications that workplace conflict can cause. Can you elaborate on that for us?

Yeah, I mean, I think Barbara and Jenn have touched on this a bit, but really, you know, from my perspective and Jenn's perspective, when a problem lands on our desk, the issue is, you know, when does workplace conflict become a legal problem? And it may sound rather basic, but it's often when it hasn't been addressed earlier, it's been ignored or, you know, not dealt with properly. And sometimes it's incumbent on managers to recognize that and surface the issue to HR or someone else that this is a brewing problem, and that usually leads to the best outcomes. Sometimes the manager's the problem, and so that isn't, you know, it doesn't surface. But the— what we're really most concerned about is when the conduct sort of morphs from a problem that doesn't implicate legal issues, it's interpersonal in nature, it's unpleasant interactions, to one then that involves, say, protected status or protected conduct. You know, could be wrongful retaliation or someone's gender, religious affiliation, or so on. And so at that point, there needs to be a recognition of how to deal with it. And I think, you know, you try to address the facts, get your arms around the facts immediately and honestly, and try to hold folks accountable, try to address people directly. And not all situations are the same. Obviously, you need to be specific about with each party what the concerns have been. And often in these circumstances, a flag will go up that causes another obligation to do an independent investigation by someone who's neutral, not invested in the company, etc. For example, you know, I give this— Jen touched on this, but you've got an employee who has been unhappy and complaining about certain aspects of their workplace. They're saying they're stressed, et cetera, and no one's really recognizing it and dealing with it. And maybe they're not getting the best performance reviews either. And the company's thinking about terminating. And just before that termination decision happens, the employee says, you know, I'm too stressed, I've got issues, I'm going to be out for a month, here's my doctor's note. Well, things rather change then, you know, you need to reconsider that termination, you need to rethink how you're doing. It implicates FMLA, disability laws, et cetera. And let's say they were complaining about misclassification of contractors, for example. Well, that's a legal issue that in many jurisdictions it could be construed— might be retaliation for having complained about that if you terminate immediately thereafter sometimes. So the point is to get your arms around this document. You know, it's better to talk to people early. Jen and I like getting calls early where you can point people in the right direction. And frankly, it's not just hearing what you should say, it's what you should not say too in many instances. So sometimes people say things that they mean well and it only compounds the situation. So I guess that would probably sum up that area.

Excellent points, very valuable insights. I want to now move to some actionable steps that we can take to resolve conflict. Jen, I want you to bring us through, you know, step by step what you think we should be doing to stop workplace conflict.

Sure. So along the lines of what Scott said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I love it when clients call me and we spend 15 minutes and then I don't hear from them again about that particular situation. It means that they, they did a good job at handling whatever it was and it didn't go further. So please look to employment counsel, HR professionals, to assist you if you just have that weird spidey sense that something isn't quite right here. And one other practical tip, Scott was talking about someone who suddenly says they need to go on a stress leave. I advise clients, and again, this isn't legal advice, but I advise clients that if you've made a decision to terminate someone but you're going to wait to implement it for whatever reason, document that in an email between management so that you have a timestamp on when the decision was made. And so you can point back to that if then they fall into a protected classification thereafter, you can show that it was not retaliation for that. But that's an aside. So what steps can we take to stop workplace conflict? The first is to create a zero tolerance policy against bullying, harassment, discrimination, and honor it. Follow it. Second, treat everyone equally. Equally when it comes to work rules and expectations. There shouldn't be favoritism with some people getting away with not following the rules. And this is especially true when you have nepotism. So employing many, you know, more than one family member or spouses or things like that, that has the appearance of favoritism. You need to be extremely aware of it. Nepotism is not illegal, but it does lead to some additional issues. About treating everyone equally. Be aware of bias that could have you treating people differently and sending different messages about employee value. Next is to train and educate your employees on how to handle workplace conflict. And when you're, you're advised to train people, don't just train them once, train them often. Don't assume that people remember an initial training. It might have gone in one ear and out the other because it didn't seem relevant at the time. Oh, there's no workplace conflict. I don't need to really remember that. So train and train again. Do you want people to try to work things out together first? You know, what, what do you want your training and education to be? And have that in a policy. I believe in soliciting employee feedback on all issues, sometimes through direct feedback, but also having some kind of an anonymous ability to submit feedback through polls or suggestion boxes. but as the employer, you really need to ensure that it is anonymous or it isn't going to be helpful. Next is to ensure that all employees know and understand the process for submitting concerns or complaints to management and share that information frequently, just like training frequently. Next and very important is to establish clear reporting channels, including a workaround so people don't have to report only to one person. You know, what if the problem person is the one person to whom they're supposed to report something? You know, you don't want litigation later where the person says they never reported something because they could only tell the problem person and it just festered and got worse. Um, next is to train and educate all managers at all levels about how to handle a complaint. Complaints don't always come in in a neat little box. I have a complaint of ongoing workplace conflict. They can come in as, I'm really not having a good relationship with this person and it's ongoing and I don't know what to do. That could be a complaint. In fact, it is. And managers need to know how to see it and what to do about it. And often it comes up that people say they don't want it to go higher. They just want to tell that manager. Well, it has to go higher. So this is where training managers comes in. The most important step you can take to stop workplace conflict, if you do none of these other things, which you should do, is to act quickly when a complaint or concern is raised. Investigate, investigate, investigate. When I very early on in my career, ages ago, I had a client who called me and said a female employee is complaining that a male employee is actually harassing her. And I went in and did the investigation. We did it right away. And the gentleman had no idea that what he was doing was being perceived as it was, and he did not intend that at all. And we were able to nip that in the bud right away because the employer decided to act quickly. And that relationship was repaired and moved on as fine. Consider whether to bring in outside investigators or to do it yourself. And protect whistleblowers against retaliation. You want people to report problems. And keep in mind that retaliation doesn't have to be extreme, like terminating someone. It can be as simple as management no longer being kind to someone because they raised their hand about something wrong at work. And we've touched on this a bit already, but regularly train on diversity. And on every level—gender, sex, age, race, religion, equity, all of it, um, you know, every single person is unique and comes to the table with different experiences and different styles. Um, and it's good to train on that for many, many reasons. Um, and lastly, consider mediation with people in conflict with each other, training on how to work better with each other, coaching. There's a product called a strengths assessment, which is a tool to determine work styles of individuals, and then it can be used to team build. So those are the general— I think there's 13, I just said— steps to take to stop workplace conflict.

Thank you. Those are excellent tools for us to, you know, consider and take a look at. You know, as we wrap up this program, because we have a few minutes left here, I do want to wrap this up just to summarize it for our audience so that they can leave here with those actionable steps and understand what the next step is to take. Scott, I want to have you summarize a few bullet points of the best practices for conflict prevention. And then we'll have Barbara come in and discuss HR's role in managing and resolving conflict. And then we'll end again with you, Jenn, just to help us link, you know, our understanding of those generational differences and communication styles, which can help play a role, a key role in conflict prevention. So, Scott, your summary for us? Sure.

I think you've heard a lot of this, but just to summarize, I think clear practices for employees about tolerated and not tolerated behaviors, and you apply those policies equally and without regard to the rank of the employee. You have a management that is actively trying to foster a culture of respect and dignity. And, you know, you train regularly and you are dealing with implicit bias, which has become a part of most trainings in recent years. It's extremely helpful. Trainings about how and when to handle complaints and getting your HR team to really understand that they need to step up as well to avoid things festering for too long and dealing with things, as Jen noted, quickly and expeditiously. And document, document, document along the way, even if it's just things like a confirming email or a calendar note so you can say, It's not just a he said, she said at the end of the day. And, you know, reach out to counsel and other trusted advisors for a gut check on any given situation.

Barbara? Human resources plays a vital role in identifying training needs, coaching needs, and providing resources to help individuals understand and value different styles and contributions. Human resources is also responsible to make sure that these tools are consistently applied rather than being forgotten or unused. Used. It's too much of an investment to be forgotten about. Training for managers, such as I've talked about, DISC, can be especially beneficial in fostering appreciation for differences in pace, priorities, and work styles. And I recommend this training for employees as well. The training is most effective when paired with role-playing exercises in a classroom setting, allowing participants to practically apply what they've learned before they have to use it on the job. And I find that very many individuals don't know or cannot be comfortable with the words to use when addressing a workplace conflict situation because it's a conflict. I coach managers and employees on how to best prepare for the conversation, and we practice beforehand to ensure the right message is getting across. We have to remember that every individual has the potential to contribute significant value. And if we listen to Stephen Covey and, quote, seek first to understand, then to be understood, we may all learn something and develop a better, faster, and more efficient way of getting a job done. Listening better can also ensure that every employee is fully heard and fairly treated. Thank you, Barbara.

Jen, I want to fit in the generational differences because I think that's an important aspect of what we're talking about here today. So I'm going to have you take it from here. Sure.

And I could speak forever on this topic, but the society has broken us into generations, and a lot of the generations are broken down based on key events like 9/11 was a clear delineation. Some people remember it and some people don't. And these are the generations today. Obviously there are people older than 96, but the Silent Generation is your Harolds and Doloreses. They are not really in the workforce anymore. The Baby Boomers are 60 to 78 years old. And they are focusing on holding on to their senior positions at work. Their leadership style is a dictator mentality. That's not bad. It just is the person in charge and everyone else needs to listen. They likely get their news from television and print rather than online. And the way to work best with baby boomers, so again, 60 to 78 years old, is to prioritize clear communication, respect their experience and their work ethic, provide specific goals and deadlines and regular feedback, offer them opportunities for mentorship, acknowledge their contributions with regular praise and recognition. That last part is very important for this generation. Potential challenges for this generation are technology adaptation. Work style differences, sensitivity to criticism, especially from younger people. The next is Generation X. Uh, these folks are 44 to 59 years old. I label them as Jennifer and Robert. I am in fact Gen X. This is the first generation to grow up with computers, but we also remember not having them. We are the sandwich generation. We're not only caring for children but for our parents. So we have less time for work and more stress about getting everything done. Uh, we have more debt than other generations and, uh, we get a lot of information from Facebook. Um, the next is millennials, Generation Y, 28 to 43 years old. I call these folks Jessica, Ashley, Christopher, and Michael. And these millennials, also called Generation Y, were shaped by 9/11, the Iraq War, and the economic recession of 2008. They are pushing for career advancement. They would rather travel than own a home or save for retirement. And 70% of them are still supported by their parents in some way. They have high anxiety, stress, they tend to job hop, they prefer a strong work-life balance, and more than half of them believe that remote work is fine and in-office work is not necessary. They are going to be focusing on teamwork and emergent leadership instead of a dictator mentality. And I'll try to keep this as short as I can, but for the millennials, you want to prioritize open communication, digital engagement, collaborative approaches. The challenge with millennials is a potential lack of respect for older workers. And then the last generation that's in the workforce at least is Generation Z, Gen Z. Emily and Jacob, and they have no memory of 9/11. They're the first generation to be totally immersed in the world of the internet. They're exceptional at computers, apps, and programs. They're resilient, having endured schooling during COVID and they're idealists who are still busy defining themselves. They have a very short attention span, and they are the first generation to get more news from online sources than from print. And with Gen Z, again, 12 to 27 years old, you should prioritize empathy and transparency and shift the focus of information from only people who need to know get this information to open access of information. They are struggling with engagement and being taken seriously. And again, I could talk on this topic for a very long time, but digging into the generations, and again, that was very generalized, but digging into the generations was actually a very fascinating endeavor for me. And hopefully some of that information was interesting to you as well.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry, everybody, but we are out of time. I want to respect everybody's time and I appreciate, you know, Scott, Jen, and Barbara for providing all your insights here with us today. And the audience as well for attending today. You'll receive a link actually to the presentation via email along with any of the materials that we were showing today as well. You'll see this link posted to the RamonLaw.com website as well. Our next Coffee Talk is scheduled for sometime in January 2025, and we do eagerly await your participation in that as well. So thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. And enjoy the upcoming holiday season. Thank you all.

Thank you. Thank you.