What does workplace conflict management training cover?
Six modules in 30 minutes: understanding the causes of workplace conflict, recognising the early signs, communication techniques for resolving disputes, mediation and negotiation skills, managing your own emotions during a difficult exchange, and building a positive and collaborative team culture.
This course deals with conflict between colleagues. Conflict with customers or the public is a different skill set and sits in a separate course.
What causes conflict at work?
Unclear responsibilities, competing priorities between departments, an unequal rota or workload, change that was announced badly or late, and personality clashes nobody addressed while they were still small. Most of the disputes that eventually reach HR began as an ordinary operational problem that two people interpreted differently.
Recognising the cause matters because the fix differs. A rota dispute is solved by changing the rota, not by a conversation about tone.
How should a manager handle conflict between two colleagues?
Speak to each person separately first, establish what actually happened rather than how it felt, and look for the operational issue underneath. Bring them together only once both know what the meeting is for, agree specific behaviours going forward rather than general goodwill, write down what was agreed and set a review date.
Stay neutral in front of both. A manager who takes a side informally usually inherits the formal grievance a fortnight later.
When does conflict become a formal grievance?
When informal resolution has failed, when the behaviour is repeated after being addressed, or when the complaint involves harassment, discrimination or anything that could be a criminal matter. Those go straight to the formal route and never to informal mediation.
The Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures sets the standard employment tribunals judge against, and a tribunal can adjust an award by up to 25% where either side unreasonably fails to follow it.
Who should take this course?
Managers, team leaders and HR professionals need it most, since they are the ones expected to step in, but the course is written so that any employee can complete it without a management background. At 30 minutes it fits inside an induction session or a team meeting slot.
Where the behaviour has tipped into harassment related to a protected characteristic, the separate bullying and harassment course covers the Equality Act 2010 duties that apply instead.
