by Daniel B. Griffith, J.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP
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What is the connection between unresolved conflict and employee engagement and wellbeing?
Research and conversations around employee engagement generally focus on what employers can do to build a great organization, and what leaders and managers can do to build great workplaces. Gallop engagement surveys acknowledge concerns with employee stress, turnover, and other factors impacting engagement and provide data to support building positive cultures to counter these concerns. Gallop’s Q12 Survey assesses key indicators for supporting employee engagement, which focus on actions and practices to build and maintain positive working relationships.
Implicit in these conversations is the effective management of conflict, but direct discussions about these connections are not as obvious. The focus seems more on adding positive factors to improve engagement than removing negative factors that may produce the same result.
Unresolved, dysfunctional conflict clearly negatively impacts employee engagement. In one report, 56% of employees experiencing conflict also report anxiety, stress, and depression, while 40% report feeling less motivated. Workers in the U.S. spend 2.5 hours a week attempting to resolve disagreements while management devotes 20% of its time addressing conflict. Among the many consequences for unresolved conflict are loss of trust in management and co-workers, negative impacts on physical and mental health, and decreases in retention, engagement with work tasks, and efficiency.
David Liddle, author of “Managing Conflict: A Practical Guide to Resolution in the Workplace and Transformational Culture: Develop a People Centred Organization for Improved Performance,” notes that business leaders, union representatives, and HR professionals agree on the high cost of conflict on the organization’s bottom line and reputation and on employee wellbeing. Yet, “for something that is so damaging, it surprises me how little emphasis is placed on it within organisations.”
Let’s get a broader picture of the connections between conflict and employee engagement and of considerations for making the argument within your organization to take these connections seriously.
The human toll of unresolved conflict. When we don’t address conflict with someone with whom we are close, we will experience the lingering stress the conflict creates. Sustained, unresolved conflict can lead to decreased sleep, changes in eating habits, and increased alcohol use and smoking. The associated stress affects heart rate and blood pressure which can break down the cardiovascular system and lead to strokes, heart attacks, and chronic disease. Though workplace relationships are not as intimate as other relationships, sustained conflicts with those we work closely can have similar effects. This can include psychosomatic complaints, feelings of burnout, psychiatric morbidity, and other psychosocial health problems.
The benefits of addressing conflicts as they arise. In intimate relationships, addressing conflicts head-on when they arise can reduce stress or eliminate it altogether. Similar benefits accrue when employees in conflict have opportunity to talk through their conflicts rather than allow them to go unattended. Providing conflict resolution skills training, including engaging in difficult conversations, can result in improved teamwork, productivity, and employee satisfaction. A key factor in resolving conflict is giving employees voice to communicate their concerns directly, participate directly in conflict resolution processes affecting them, and express concerns indirectly through employee representatives. Such opportunities further reduce employees’ intentions to quit. One study found that employees are less likely to report stress, poor health, exhaustion, and absences due to illness when their differences with others were resolved through discussion compared to situations where no attempts were made to discuss disagreements.
The difference the right kind of leader can make. The same study found no difference in favorably resolving conflicts when the use of authority was applied compared to situations where no attempts were made. In other words, neither approach was effective compared to affording opportunity to talk through differences and giving employees voice. The right kind of leadership matters for addressing workplace conflict effectively and improving employee wellbeing. A meta-analysis found that transformational and destructive leadership styles are the strongest predictors of overall and negative aspects of mental health among employees. That is, the transformational style by which the leader inspires employees, engages them in creative thinking, and considers each person’s needs positively impacts mental health. A destructive style that is aggressive and potentially harmful to employees has a negative impact. Relations-oriented and task-oriented leadership styles are also strong predictors of positive mental health among employees.
A radical change in HR’s response. In recent articles, I provide insights on avoiding grievances, utilizing organizational resources beyond HR, and taking proactive approaches that don’t require HR. This advice assumes the traditional HR function, but does HR need an overhaul? David Liddle notes HR still functions based on policies responsive to business realities of thirty years ago. HR instead “needs to think and act like a disruptor, not an extension of management” and evolve into “a truly independent people and culture function.” It must “throw off the shackles of retribution” and “the corrosive, destructive, damaging, adversarial, and reductive HR processes that have undermined working relations for too long.”
Liddle further advocates for “a set of integrated people policies which are robust, driven by a desire to be proactive, with a far clearer focus on listening and positively engaging with the workforce.” While investigation and dismissal may be appropriate in serious cases, the remedy often involves “trying to find another resolution through some process of dialogue, coaching, facilitation, or mediation.”
The disconnect between engagement intentions and what’s really happening in the workplace. Liddle notes that organizations and their leaders often send positive outward messages about common purpose, positive environment, embracing diversity, and creating a positive workplace, but perpetuate “reactive and retributive” systems for addressing performance, grievances, and discipline. Employees hear these outward messages but are then put through a corrective process that “destroys their relationships” and, in many cases, “destroys them in terms of their mental health and their wellbeing.”
Herein lies the challenge of messaging and practice around employee engagement. It’s time to rethink conflict and acknowledge that traditional, top-down, evidence-driven conflict management processes decrease engagement. They create a “victim/perpetuator” mentality, lead employees in conflict to blame the organization, and heighten stress and anxiety. Employers must develop instead processes that normalize conflict through immediate, informal, collaborative processes, empower employees to make decisions, and treat constructive conflict engagement as an opportunity for learning and growth.
It is fine to promote the positive aspects of the employee experience and the organization’s commitment to employees. That commitment is belied on the ground if the organization cannot meaningfully support employees in both fair and foul weather.
