This blog post was originally published on April 4, 2012 and was updated on November 5, 2020.

Sometimes employees don't get along and these conflicts and office disagreements can dampen productivity, waste time, reduce a team's performance, make the work environment tense and uncomfortable, and increase stress in work groups - none of which are beneficial to your business. Here are a few ways managers can help reduce conflict on their teams.

1. Set the tone

Managers and leaders set the tone for team interactions by what they say or do when conflict or problems emerge between their employees, how they manage conflict with their own peers, and what behavior they tolerate. If managers act passive-aggressive, disrespect fellow employees, or do not directly deal with conflict, employees will follow their lead.

2. Hire team-players

Hiring employees who have strong interpersonal, team-building, and internal customer service skills can decrease the likelihood of conflicts. While it's tough to predict how well a candidate will interact with your team, a solid personality or style assessment and behavioral interview as well as asking for references can help.  

3. Don't ignore conflicts

Managers have a tendency to ignore problems with poor team players or team conflicts until they escalate. Instead they should encourage employees to collaborate on a solution and seek coaching and/or training for current employees who argue with coworkers, don't provide good internal service, or are overly critical or judgmental of others. It's critical to not let conflict spiral out of control.

4. Educate on styles and generational differences

Great teams are melting pots of different generations and backgrounds. Each employee brings a different personality and style to the table. Most conflict stems from not fully appreciating who another person is, their background, and the strengths of their individual style. Spend time educating your team on style and generational differences.

5. Spend time interacting

Developing common ground is one of the most important ways to fend off conflict in the workplace, and it's achieved in the simplest of ways: spending more time with one another. Informally interacting and talking is one of the best ways to get employees familiar with one another. When they eventually find common ground, magic happens.

6. Reward teamwork

Most managers want teamwork, but reward individual achievement. Recognizing and rewarding teamwork, collaboration, and supportive interactions and promoting or giving choice assignments to employees who act like team players helps promote and encourage a supportive work environment.

When conflict strikes in the workplace, your managers are the best people to nip it in the bud, deal with it, and prevent it.

This blog post was originally published on Oct. 29, 2018, and it was updated on Oct. 7, 2020.

With the upcoming 2020 Election Day on November 3, to say that this year has been more politically charged than most is an understatement at best. So what happens when political discussions begin to (or maybe they already have) sneak into the workplace? Hopefully, nothing. Ideally the discussions remain just that—a civil discourse between employees, perhaps during their lunch hour.

Spring has sprung, and it's (almost) time to put away your winter coat. During any workplace season, it’s easy in HR to get caught up in managing the day-to-day, so we’ve put together a list of items you should consider adding to your master clean-up list.

Get Recognized as a Great Northeast Ohio Workplace for Top Talent

ERC is excited to announce the launch of our 21st annual NorthCoast 99 award! The 2019 application is open now through April 26.

Apply for the 2019 NorthCoast 99 Award

The Value of Applying

• Find out what drives your organization's top performers
• Be branded as a great Northeast Ohio workplace for top talent
• Benchmark your company's performance with other top local workplaces

Learn More About NorthCoast 99

Thank You, Sponsors!
The 2019 NorthCoast 99 event is made possible with the generous support of our sponsors.

Culture is the character and personality of your organization. It's what makes your business unique and is the sum of its values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviors, and attitudes.

A new year brings New Year's Resolutions. The most common personal resolutions are to be more health conscious, work out more, and spend more time with friends and family. But what about your professional life?

Tis the season for several HR and compliance issues associated with the holidays. Here are five (5) holiday HR issues that you should revisit as the holidays ensue.

ERC’s client service team accepted the company’s When Work Works Award from Cleveland SHRM at Corporate College East. Left to right: melissa koren, annie dohnal, sam marx, and Hayley McQuate

With TIME Magazine’s declaration that the “Silence Breakers” (i.e., women who have come forward to report their personal experiences as victims of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace) as their “Person of the Year”, there is clearly a desire to see sexual harassment stamped out in the workplace. In addition to this public pressure for change, we’ve already established that sexual harassment in the workplace is expensive and damaging to employers and employees alike.

Millennials are being officially ousted as the new kids on the block. By 2020, Generation Z (Gen Z) will make up 20% of the total workforce and here’s what you need to know about them.