Poor management, poor organisational structure, multitasking, ineffective supervision and lack of employee training could make the employees unproductive in your business. But did you know that unhealthy conflicts among the employees could affect your business more? Conflicts are everywhere and inevitable. They don't just eat up productivity, but also steal away precious time meant for other important business activities. If the employees squabble in your office often, try to identify the cause of conflicts before you determine the conflict resolution strategy to use. See why the workplace relationship among your employees may have gone SOUR.

S — Styles

Employees are different even though they look alike when in corporate apparel. If employees with the same credentials are working on the same project, they won't get similar results when using different styles. Different employees won't think about a business project the same way, and that's why they won't approach it using the same style. Diversity of style is allowed if the employees understand the culture of your business and if their style would improve it. If some employees don't meet what their colleagues expect from them or behave in a certain way, conflicts arise. However, the manager or business owner needs to resolve these conflicts knowing that problems don't last, but the business culture does.

O — Objectives

Conflicting objectives or goals among the employees can hurt your business in a big way. Employees who aren't laser-focused on what the business wants to achieve will always conflict with those focused on a target. Most employees will disagree with one another when the goals aren't harmonised. Whether your employees are working on the same project or different projects, they shouldn't do it at cross-purposes. If you want the employees to focus on customer goals for a period, they shouldn't shift to culture goals and financial goals before the customer objectives are achieved.

U — Unpredictable Policies

If you intend to introduce some new policies in your business, inform the employees about it in good time. Most employees don't read workplace policies often to know the rules and conditions to abide by, and things get worse when the policies change with little warning. If the employees are busy throughout the day, some of them can hardly read the HR's email indicating the policy changes expected to take effect. Give each employee a policy booklet indicating the coming changes. This way, you avoid unpredictable policies that cause conflicts among them.

R — Roles

Even if an employee is an expert in a certain area, they will be asked to handle a different task sometimes. Employees pursuing some selfish favours could also perform two or more tasks at the same time just to outshine the others. Such employees get unhappy when they discover you know what's going on, and they even conflict with those who reported it to you. Outline what every employee should do and make them know who to report to so they don't step on each other's toes.

For more information, contact a company that offers conflict resolution services.