"Touch my Justin Bieber poster again and I'll sue!"

Workplace conflict can often start in a fairly innocuous manner but the consequences can be serious as highlighted by 40% of respondents to a recent survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, "Tracing Workplace Conflict".  

An employee in one organization was dismissed after Facebook "banter" got out of hand and he "liked" a comment about an unpopular manager being beaten over the head with a chair.

Barbed comments between two chefs about vegetable preparation ended in a fist fight and a hospital visit for the two protagonists.

Another business came to standstill for three days over a dispute over stolen milk from the refrigerator. The company ended up buying six new refrigerators, one for each department. 

These examples illustrate the importance of dealing proactively with conflict and not allowing the situation to fester. The impact on productivity, motivation, morale and the culture of the organization can't be underestimated. 

A certain amount of conflict in an organization is inevitable, and the most common ..... a clash of personality or working style. You are after all putting a group of people together who may have conflicting personal objectives and are not necessarily selected for their teamworking skills. Just ask the manager of a sales team I recently worked with, the concept of collaboration was not one that came readily to this team.

Often communication or a lack of it is the flashpoint for conflict - language and the body language that accompanies it is often at the root of many misunderstandings. This is exacerbated with the increasing absence of face to face contact in the workplace, you can't judge from the other person's reaction whether you're on the right track or not from a voice message, text or e-mail.

Line managers nervousness in dealing with conflict is also a contributory factor to escalating problems. From my experience in 25 years of working with a range of organizations, managers are often promoted for their technical expertise and not necessarily their people skills. They are placed in positions of authority, without the necessary skills or confidence to deal effectively with these situations and as a result they don't.

So how do we deal effectively with conflict in the workplace?

Well timing is everything. Taking a proactive approach to adress issues early on will pay dividends but requires line managers to be skilled and confident to take action. We may find that mediation and conflict resolution become a core skill for all managers as they take up post, so that they can deal with matters informally and effectively.

This is often preferable to formalizing the process too early by bringing in the HR "big guns", which can lead to an increase in grievances where every problem leads to a formal complaint and investigation. Did I mention the time and financial cost the formal process can take?

A third option is to utlize a mediation service, either internal or external, that can lead to a positive outcome. However, this approach needs to take place without prejudice and from a position of balanced power i.e. mediation won't be effective if the approach is " ... if this doesn't work I resort to legal action".

Here's my six simple steps to dealing proactively and effectively with conflict in the workplace:

1. Discuss the situation in a respectful manner
2. Be specific as to the problem
3. Discuss how the conflict impacts on you, the team or the project
4. Ask for the other parties perspective on what's causing the conflict
5. Ask for a proposed solution
6. Agree on the action to be taken

Click here for further information on how I can help managers become proficient at tackling those difficult situations at work.

Are HR Business Partners a Dying Breed?

Two decades ago David Ulrich published his book Human Resource Champions outlining his ideas on how Human Resources could realign itself to meet the needs of the business it supported.

In it's core the HR Business Partner model is pretty straight forward, a centralized or out sourced HR Services function focusses on the transactional stuff, subject matter experts e.g. benefits, policy etc provide the knowledge and business minded HR partners embeded into business units, add bottom line value.

To what degree this has actually happened is up for debate and to be fair the three dimensional approach to HR wasn't necessarily Ulrich's design, he was concerned with framing HR in a way that would free the more business savvy, strategically minded to focus on adding value to the customer.

One prominent view is that despite a change of title the reality is that many HR business partners remain part of a function that is reactive rather than proactive, focussed on procedure and transaction orientated. From my experience the HR business partner approach has worked better in larger organizations where transactional work can be outsourced (not always popular in itself) or undertaken by shared services, elsewhere where HR either can't articulate its transformation to operational units or where line managers are unwilling or unable to take on additional responsibilities that were the work of HR the idea can become a non-starter.

So what can be done?

One consideration is to match the model for HR in a business with the structure of the company itself i.e. if the company is centralized and functional then HR should follow the same model, this would be a view shared by Ulrich who seems frustrated that the people have not evolved the idea rather than taking a cookie cutter approach.

Linked to this is being realistic, what does the company want & need from its HR function, in many cases, as mentioned earlier, line managers don't want or aren't able to take on the more transactional nature of the HR role. In my experience corporately in HR this would translate itself into line managers happy to take on the responsibilities they wanted, hiring and firing for example, but not wanting the rest i.e. payroll & benefits, complaints, trade union negotiations.

Some commentators have suggested that HR managers can be upskilled, re-tooled and rebadged, so that they are highly articulate influencers, with commercial and business savvy, an extensive knowledge of HR best practice, well qualified with a sound experience of both HR and Operations. No mention of these people having a "S" emblazoned on their chest! 

Are we being too unrealistic in our desire for the HR business partner? I'd love to hear from HR business partners and their Operations colleagues, how do you see it?

I am Canada’s “Champion of Great Leadership” I work with companies developing leaders to optimize the performance of their teams. 

Check out our range of Leadership Training programs at Bluegem Learning - Leadership Programs.

Men paid 29% more than women?

In my earlier post "Women work for free ...", I highlighted the recent Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) 2015 National Management Salary Survey that revealed that women earn 22% less than men, meaning that they’re unpaid for 1h 40m a day.

I've had a few people ask me for further details i.e. was this the same in every industry and if not how much of a differential was there. I've delved a little deeper into the report and here is a breakdown by key industries.

29%   Accountancy - average male salary £47,034, average female salary £36,432

22%   Banking - average male salary £25,377, average female salary £20,800

21%   Energy - average male salary £27,452, average female salary £22,674

19%   Purchasing - average male salary £29,555, average female salary £24,796

18%   Sales - average male salary £23,562, average female salary £19,898

18%   Education - average male salary £21,216, average female salary £17,922

18%   Hospitality - average male salary £18,497, average female salary £15,665

13%   Retail - average male salary £16,851, average female salary £14,951

Source: Reed

One of the difficulties the report highlighted in conducting pay audits was the ability to compare 'equal value work', especially in the private sector. Using job roles as a basis wasn't enough and full job evaluation would be required first.

10 Ways to Celebrate Learning @ Work

September is Learning @ Work Month here in Canada.

Learning @ Work Month offers an opportunity to reinforce your commitment to employee development by promoting learning activities that can range from non-work related and interest-led activities through award ceremonies to business focused sessions.

 I have experienced some great sessions as part of Learning @ Work, however one of the biggest challenges organizations can face is thinking of ideas that are affordable and relatively easy to organize. With this in mind I’ve listed below some great ideas that I’ve used myself and won’t break the bank. Feel free to adapt these ideas to your own organization.

1. Educate another department about your work area
2. Run a short session on a particular topic e.g. how to cope with disruptive customers
3. Ask the CEO to talk about their experiences as a leader
4. Shadow a colleague from a different department

1. Create a short competition to engage staff, e.g. a quiz
2. Learn a new skill, either work or non-work related e.g watercolour painting
3. Run a teambuilding exercise
4. Hold a lunch event to celebrate a notable success in your organization
5. Show a selected TED talk and have a discussion about the talk
6. Invite an external speaker to give a talk to your team

 Whatever you choose to do, get together with your work colleagues and help each other out, this way it will also be more fun and social!

If you are looking for a speaker for your Learning @ Work event, check out my Fall Lunch & Learn Leadership series 

WOMEN WORK FOR FREE 1H 40M A DAY

The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) in the UK have just released the details from their analysis of the 2015 National Management Salary Survey of 72,000 UK managers reveals that women working in equivalent full-time roles earn 22% less than men, meaning that they’re unpaid for 1h 40m a day – a total of 57 working days every year.

The CIPD have produced the following infographic - below which explains their findings.

New regulations coming into force in 2016 will require large organizations to report how they pay men and women. 

How does your company compare here in Alberta? Is gender equality in terms a reality or not? I'd love to hear your views.

Check out our range of Leadership Training programs at Bluegem Learning - Leadership Programs