The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook

The Essential Workplace

Conflict Handbook

A Quick and Handy Resource for Any Manager, Team Leader, HR Professional, or Anyone Who Wants to Resolve Disputes and Increase Productivity

Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gamlem

Authors of The Big Book of HR

Today’s workplaces are dynamic, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that tension can develop quickly and ruinously. THE ESSENTIAL WORKPLACE CONFLICT HANDBOOK: A Quick and Handy Resource for Any Manager, Team Leader, HR Professional, or Anyone Who Wants to Resolve Disputes and Increase Productivity (Career Press, September 2015) is the ideal resource for anyone ready to confront conflict at work rather than run from it. Managed correctly, conflict can be a positive source for innovation and creativity.

Using examples drawn from wide range of corporate and entrepreneurial experiences, along with checklists and other practical tools, THE ESSENTIAL WORKPLACE CONFLICT HANDBOOK will help employees, managers at all levels, and business owners answer the following important questions:

·      What’s changing in the workplace and the workforce today?

·      Are the right issues being addressed?

·      How can we create more options to solve conflicts?

·      What’s my conflict style, and why is it important?

·      How should I set and manage expectations?

·      What happens when disruptive behavior gets out of control?

Positive interactions are critical to successful workplaces. THE ESSENTIAL WORKPLACE CONFLICT HANDBOOK gives you the confidence you need to communicate effectively, as well as clear understanding of your individual responsibility, no matter your title or role. It also gives the organization a plan for what it can do to foster a tension-free workplace.

For more information or to request interviews, please contact Tess@TessWoodsPR.com.

THE ESSENTIAL WORKPLACE CONFLICT HANDBOOK

A Quick and Handy Resource for Any Manager, Team Leader, HR Professional, or Anyone Who Wants to Resolve Disputes and Increase Productivity

Barbara Mitchell, Cornelia Gamlem

Career Press

978-1-63265-008-5

$14.99

September 2015

Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, & Independent Booksellers

Choices & Flexibility

Marissa Mayer announced that she’s pregnant with twins and plans to take a short maternity leave (two weeks) when she delivers in December. The chatter about this news is all over social and mainstream media. Endless numbers of people are weighing in on her decision. I caught part of a discussion about it on the TV news while waiting for an appointment. Should she take a longer maternity leave? Did she have a responsibility to do so since women have fought long and hard for expanded benefits? Shouldn’t she serve as a role model for all women? The same morning the Washington Post’s column “On Leadership” was also talking about her parenting decisions.

As CEO of Yahoo, Ms. Mayer has some decisions to make – both about how to parent and about how to run a company. She’s not the first CEO to make such a decision. Chad Dickerson, CEO of Etsy, the on-line commerce sites, took a full paternity leave when he and his wife adopted a child in 2012. In each case, both CEOs had to weight the circumstances of their situations – which were similar, but not identical – to make their decisions. For Dickerson, the timing of his leave was at the height of the holiday shopping season. He had to go to the board to explain the importance of taking this time off and provide a plan for their approval. Mayer’s company, Yahoo, is going through a critical period in its life cycle, spinning off Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company, a transition that will be completed by the end of this calendar year. Their situations are unique in comparison to the situations of other employees in their respective organization who are facing the same decision about parental leave. Their positions in their companies are not distinctive and not representative of the typical parent (mother or father). 

As I listened to the debate on the TV about Mayer’s choices, I couldn’t help but think that there’s not a cookie cutter approach for how new parents deal with the demands of their growing families and the responsibilities of their jobs. It’s yet another aspect of diversity. Jena McGregor, the columnist who wrote the piece on Mayer, rightfully pointed out that as CEO, she may not have as many choices as other expectant mothers at Yahoo might have.

Organizations in this country are making great strides in offering more robust benefits to help all employees, not only new mothers and fathers, have better work-life integration. The stigma surrounding men taking paternity leave is dissipating. We’re making progress, but still have more work to do as a country on this issue. Despite how far we have, or haven’t come, it’s a journey that continues. More choices are available than a generation ago and more should be available to all working parents. Flexibility continues to be an important issues for workplaces today. In the meantime, it’s important to respect the decisions that individuals choose to make. 

The Glass Closet

The news has been filled with aspects of diversity lately – the Supreme Court’s decision on same sex marriage, the greater awareness of the transgender community thanks to Caitlin Jenner, and the recent decision of the EEOC that employers who discriminate against LGBT workers are violating Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  But how does all of this relate to the business community (beyond the obvious legal implications), and what can business professionals do to better understand and leverage diversity?  May I suggest a great addition to your business reading list – The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out is Good Business by John Browne – to help answer your questions.

The name “John Browne” may sound familiar to you.  He was the successful CEO of BP until he was involuntarily “outed” via a very public scandal.  John Browne’s message is clear – people are more productive and effective if they can bring their true self to the work environment, and that can only be done if they are free from prejudice and anxiety.

"I wish I had been brave enough to come out earlier during my tenure as the chief executive of BP. I regret it to this day. I know that if I had done so, I would have made more of an impact for other gay men and women. It is my hope that the stories in this book will give some of them the courage to make an impact of their own." —John Browne

You may be thinking:  this sounds like a personal journey and decision (which it is), and encouraging people to be their authentic self at work is great, but what does that have to do with my business?  I’m already supportive of diversity in the workplace.  Well if you are, that’s great, but it’s not just about diversity – it’s more importantly about inclusion.  So what’s the difference?

While each of you may have a slightly different definition of diversity, most of you would all generally agree that diversity consists of the characteristics that make people different from one another, including characteristics a person has little or no control over and characteristics that can be adopted.  This goes far beyond the things that many people typically think about when they hear the word diversity – race, religion, gender, sexual orientation – and expands to encompass the numerous other ways in which we’re different – educational level, economic level, veteran status, family status, and on and on…  And if asked why diversity is important to businesses, most would quickly reply that diversity in the workplace lends itself to a competitive advantage for the business.  True. 

Which brings us to inclusion.  Inclusion is simply the environment in which diversity thrives.  In other words, what good is it to recruit or develop a diverse workforce if your new talent isn’t comfortable in the workplace and leaves?  A business should have the goal of fostering an inclusive environment that encourages individuals of different races, ages, gender, ethnicity, religions, sexual orientation, and abilities to reach their full potential.  This is the point of The Glass Closet.

So what does an inclusive work environment look like?  An inclusive work environment is one in which:

·       

    Employees are appreciated and valued for who they are as individuals (i.e., not negatively judged for being “different”.)

·       

    Employees relate to others in the workplace in a respectful manner both as individuals and as members of their cultural groups.

·       Individual employee differences are seen as potential business advantages.

·       Those differences are effectively leveraged for the benefit of the organization.

The company results of building a corporate inclusion program include:

·       An inclusive culture that can drive business results; a competitive edge in the global economy

·       A workforce that looks like the marketplace – it allows penetration into new markets and captures multicultural consumers

·       Improved corporate image and ability to connect with community to be a good corporate citizen

·       Improved employee morale and retention, increased talent pool, and, ideally, reduced litigation

Great!  Sign me up!  But how?  As in any effective business goal, this takes time and a strategic approach.  Some imperatives for making diversity and inclusion work include:

·       CEO and executive management commitment

·       An actionable strategic plan for integrating diversity and inclusion into every aspect of an organization

·       Accountability assigned for achieving diversity goals

·       Metrics established to measure results (If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.)

Basically, diversity and Inclusion must be incorporated into every business decision.  Diversity and inclusion are not an option in today’s completive business environment, but a business imperative.  And they’re not just about compliance.  They’re about employees being able to bring their whole selves to work, and being comfortable when they do so.  The result will better products, increased customer value, increased profitability, and improved competitiveness.  So get started – increase you own understanding and awareness – and read the book.

Lynn M. Lorenz, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

Lecturer, Marymount University

School of Business Administration

Hot Topic-- Employee Engagement

The good news is that, according to the latest Gallup survey at the end of 2014, employee engagement in the US is at its highest level since 2000 but it still isn’t good.  Here’s what they found:

31.5% of employees are engaged

51% are not engaged

17.5% are actively disengaged

It is estimated that disengaged workers cost the US economy approximately $300 billion in lost productivity annually.  Employee engagement corresponds to the level of the staff members’ commitment and connection to the organization they support.  High levels of engagement translate to increases in customer satisfaction, employee retention and productivity.

 One way organizations can gauge whether or not their employees are engaged is by doing employee surveys or by holding focus groups to ask questions around how employees are feeling about the work, the organization, and its leadership.  Leaders and managers who listen carefully to their employees in meetings or in one on one situations have a much better chance of having engaged employees than those who aren’t good listeners. 

The Big Book of HR (available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble) has an entire chapter on employee engagement.  Included is a sample engagement survey that you may find useful as you attempt to understand your current employee population and what’s important to then.

One of the things that fuels employee engagement is when people are proud of where they work.  Being a good corporate citizen in whatever community the organization is in is hugely impactful on employee engagement.  This doesn’t mean you have to be a household name—just that you actively support your local community or pick a charity to sponsor—employees love getting behind a good cause and making a difference.

Another way to build engagement and also give back to the community is to volunteer for causes that matter to your employees.  Some organizations ask employees to nominate a favorite charity and select that group to sponsor for a year. Others select organizations where not only are you giving back to the community but you are building teams such as volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.  The organization makes a donation to the organization and then employees work on a build site for a day and in the process, get to know each other while supporting a good cause.

Of course, we know that to have engaged workers, you have to pay them fairly so it is important to participate in salary and benefits surveys in your market to be sure you are competitive.  Pay and benefits are only part of what is now called “Total Rewards Programs” which, in addition to pay and benefits, also include recognition programs and flexible work schedules.  Employees want to be recognized for the good work they do and, now more than ever, having flexible work arrangements have a hugely positive impact.  (See the Total Rewards chapter in The Big Book of HR).

Investing in your employees by showing genuine interest in them as individuals and in their well-being will go a long way toward having a more engaged workforce. 

Technology & Stress at Work

Our comfort level with the technology we use at work will depend on when we entered the workforce. For Baby Boomers, technology like switchboards and IBM Selectric Typewriters are words not even in the vocabulary of Millennials. Technological advances forever changed the way we work – are all of those changes good?

Technology today involves Iphones, e-mail and text messaging, not to mention social media. It is estimated that in 2015 U.S. workers will receive 22 percent and send more that 24 percent business e-mails than they did three years ago.  This has a negative impact on workers because

·      E-mail is addictive. People can get a rush with every new message and experience withdrawal when they are away from their inbox. The same can be said for text messages.

·      E-mail impedes focus when people shift their attention between two activities (responding to e-mail and finishing another task).

·      E-mail wastes time when workers have to recover their train of thoughts after e-mail interruptions (Now where was I?).

All of this new technology have blurred the boundary between work and personal time. Lack of boundaries contributes not only to stress but to workplace conflict.  Managers are able to reach workers 24/7 and employees are feeling the stress. Success at work is often measured by goals, quotas and objectives that may require more than the standard eight-hour workday.  The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) defines job stress as “the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker.”

What’s an organization to do?

·      Encourage employees to go through e-mail at scheduled times, turn off distracting alerts and reply only when necessary. It will help break the addiction.

·      Use group discussions or employee surveys to collect information about what contributes to employees’ stress.

·      Give employees opportunities to participate in decisions affecting their jobs.

·      Make sure managers are clear about communicating expectations and prioritizing tasks so that employees know which are most important and which can wait.

·      Set reasonable deadlines.

·      Provide resources such as management training and employee assistance programs.

·      If feasible for the organization, implement telework.

A New Book - A New Look

We are very pleased to announce that we have a new book coming out very soon. Last fall the publisher of The Big Book of HR, Career Press approached us with the idea for a new book, The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook. We spent the winter and early spring writing it and are excited   that the publication date is September 21, 2015. (You can also visit Amazon.com now and pre-order it!)

Now we have two exciting books to publicize and we will be doing radio interviews, print interviews, as well as contributing to magazines and ezines to get the word out about our books.  We’ve learned a lot about the world of book publishing and publicity which we know will help us market our books going forward.

In addition to The Big Book of HR’s website (www.bigbookofhr.com), we will have a website for the new book (essentialworkplaceconflict.com).  Both websites will feature our blogs and information on speaking engagements, book reviews, and interviews and media coverage.  We will continue to tweet @bigbookofhr and on @gotworkconflict

We are also changing the title of our blog and our Constant Contact newsletter to Making People Matter—you will see this title as it arrives in your inbox every month and we hope you will read and comment on our postings.

You can continue to follow what we’re doing and the exciting changes to come. You can sign up to receive our blog every week. It’s posted at makingpeoplematter.blogspot.com. Follow us on Twitter and Google+ where we’ll keep you up-to-date on events and relevant items of interest. Look for our LinkedIn updates. Most importantly, look for the release of The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook in September.

We appreciate the interest and support of all our readers, friends and colleagues. Thanks for being part of these adventures with us.

Feedback – An Essential Management Competency

What’s the most important part of performance management? Hint, it’s not filling out the annual performance appraisal form. It’s the feedback, timely, effective feedback. Yet feedback is something that managers try to avoid because they associate feedback with negativity. All employees want to know “How am I doing?” This is especially true for the Millennial Generation. The following are quick pointers for managers and team leaders:

·      Reinforcement is the most effective form of feedback.

·      Conversely, criticism is the most ineffective form. It overpowers all other forms.

·      The difference between criticism and advice is a difference in timing. Most criticism can be given as advice.

·      Praise accomplishments!

·      When feedback is mixed, the impact is diluted. Be clear and concise. Let the employee know what they are doing well and what they need to do differently.

·      State specifically what you’ve observed – both positive and negatives. Remember the what, when, where. Give examples that support your points.

·      Concentrate on observable behaviors and results and not the person. Express observations calmly and factually.

·      Describe specifically what you want to reinforce and/or correct and explain why it’s important.

·      Describe the consequences of not correcting negative behavior or performance.

When providing feedback, remember that differences matter. Not everyone sees the world through the same set of lenses. Revise your mental model, get rid of the noise, acknowledge and respect differences, and recognize barriers to communication.  Ask yourself:

·     Are my words escalating a negative situation?

·     Am I communicating clearly?

·     Am I getting all the information I need?

·     Is it possible that my words and actions are being misinterpreted?

·     Are my assumptions creating barriers?

Consider how one employee described her manager’s approach to providing positive feedback, stating that it goes a long way.

·      He addresses people directly and privately.

·      He appreciates your diligence to get the work completed in a correct and timely fashion.

·      He compliments you on the work you are assigned to do as well as when you go above and beyond what is expected.

·      He shows appreciation.

·      He recognizes the unique nature of the job.

·      He makes you feel recognized and valued.

·      He treats everyone with dignity and respect.

Delivering effective feedback is a skill that managers and leaders can perfect. Make sure the feedback is timely (when the behavior or performance occurs) and do it often. Even if the feedback is around negative issues, employees will welcome it and feel respected. Don’t assume your “superstars” automatically know they are doing a great job. They want to hear it and they want to hear how they can do even better.