How to Prevent Employee Infighting At Your Company

While you’d hope that your workers would all effortlessly get along, work well together, and all-around push the company to new heights, there’s something that’s always important to keep in mind: your employees are only human. There’s going to be people who find it more difficult to get along, there’ll be resentments, there’ll be, well, a whole range of negative aspects, if they’re allowed to develop. Your job, as a leader, is to do your best to prevent employee conflict before it’s allowed to develop. But how do you do this? We take a look at six tried and tested methods below.

Create a Pleasant Atmosphere

People are much less likely to indulge in the darker side of their character if they’re in a happy place. People are responsive creatures; if they’re working in an office that brings them down, then they’ll be more likely to take out their unhappiness on other people, compared to if they were working in a pleasant environment. So take steps to create an agreeable atmosphere. It’s something that’s entirely in your power! Add plants, make sure there’s plenty of lighting, and add office benefits such as relaxing seating, snacks and coffee, and so on. In fact, a word on this last point — people are much less likely to snap at other people if they’re well-fed. Really!

Make an Effort

It’s easy to make judgments about other people. You can convince yourself that you dislike a person just by watching them for ten minutes. However, while this is an easy approach, it’s not the best one. You can’t really make your mind up about a person until you know them a little better. As the boss, it’s up to you to create a framework that allows your employees to understand their colleagues beyond the surface level. Look at organizing after work drinks, team-building weekends away, and other fun activities. Your employees might just realize that they do like one another after all.

Eliminate Causes of Tension

Of course, there’s only so much that people getting along can do. It’s all good and well having similar interests and senses of humor when it comes to those after work drinks, but it’s only a start. The most significant cause of employee tension comes from work-related matters. For example, when people don’t pull their weight, yet get paid the same. This one can frustrate the hard workers like nothing else can. As such, it’ll be in your interest to make sure that everyone’s working equally as hard. To reduce the tension that surrounds people coming in late/leaving area, look at integrating employee time clock software into your business — you can find it at https://getsling.com/employee-time-clock/. It’s also important to keep an eye on your employees to understand which employees are behind your best work — employees are more tolerating of poor staff members so long as they’re being recognized.

Keep Things Fair

The easiest way to cause tension, demotivate your staff, and cause arguments is to play an unfair game, especially when it comes to promotions and preferential treatment. We’re supposed to live in a meritocracy, where you’re rewarded for how well and hard you work. It’s in your interest to live by these ideals. You might have your favorite employee (or, worse, a relative working for you) but they shouldn’t get the better jobs just because of personal connections.

Hire Correctly

As you go through life, you figure out that trouble seems to follow certain people around. They’re never too far from drama. If you employ one of these people, then it won’t be long before you have to deal with the trouble that they bring. As such, it’s important that you hire correctly. Don’t just look at their resume; get an assessment of their character. If you had a sense that they’re a good person, then they’ll be unlikely to give you any unnecessary problems. It’s not a way to avoid tension and problems entirely, but you’ll at least be reducing the chances of it happening.

Conflict Resolution

Try as you might to prevent trouble from arising, there’s always a chance that you’ll encounter tension and conflict between two or more staff members from time to time. It’s here when you’ll need to show your leadership credentials, and successful dissolve the problem. How you approach the resolution will depend on the issue at hand, but common approaches include talking to employees individually, keeping the workers apart, and appealing to the professional side of their charact

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