Conflicts with or between employees can be time-consuming, costly, and have damaging ripple effects throughout the organisation. It', therefore, important for you as an employer to try to prevent such conflicts before they can even develop.
In order to implement preventive measures, it's important to understand the most common causes for unwanted employee behaviour causing many conflicts within organisations: Lack of clarity and transparency regarding the organisation's expectations, rules, and regulations, insufficient or unsuccessful communication, and no or unfair enforcement of those internal rules. The following measures will help you minimise those causes. Also read how your business benefits by eliminating organisational conflicts.
I. Code of conduct: your company's rules of the gameDo you have a code of conduct? A piece of paper that defines how you expect employees to behave, generally and in regard to specific issues or situations? If not, you can't be surprised if employees act in a way you disapprove of: How can they know what you expect if you haven't told them?
II. Specific and comprehensibleIf you have a code of conduct, examine it again and ask yourself regarding every single point of the document: Is the statement specific and easy to understand? If not, rewrite it. For instance, the statement "The consumption of alcoholic beverages on the premises of the company is discouraged. Breaches of this regulation may lead to consequences." is very vague because it is unclear what is meant by "discouraged", what the consequences are if you do drink at the company, and if it's ok to drink outside the premises even if you're working for the company. A rule that is both specific and easy to understand would be: "Don't drink alcohol during your working time. If you are caught, you will get a warning. If you are caught a second time, you will be discharged."
III. Easily accessible and introduced to everyoneThe best rule book is of little use if no-one knows where to find it. Make sure that every employee either has their own hard copy of your code of conduct or at least knows where to find it, for instance, on your intranet. Moreover, rules are most likely to be internalised if you make them a topic during the induction phase of new recruits. You can organise workshops about your code of conduct where people get to ask questions and discuss concrete cases to better understand why specific rules exist and what they mean. If you want to go a step further, you could make the acknowledgement and acceptance of your rules part of every employment contract. In that case, of course, you need to send those rules to new recruits along with their contract.
IV. Who owns your code of conduct?The acceptance and impact of your internal rules also depends on how transparently they are being managed and enforced:
- Do you have an official working group responsible for writing and regularly revising the rules and for dealing with complaints?
- Does every employee know who those people are and who to approach if they have a complaint or a suggestion for improvement?
- And who is responsible for the communication of changes?
- Who is responsible for teaching the codes of conduct to new recruits during the induction phase?
- And who is supposed to enforce rules and determine the consequences in case of breaches?
Not only do you need to answer all these questions, you also need to make these answers known to every single employee.
It may seem counter-intuitive that a clear and specific set of rules can be good for your corporate culture: We often associate rules with bureaucracy, penalties, and the restriction of personal freedoms. However, a fair and reasonable code of conduct can go a long way in preventing conflicts within your company because it helps people understand what you expect of them - and what the consequences are if they don't meet those expectations.
What are your experiences regarding internal rules and regulations? Are there any pitfalls you have witnessed? Or specific practices that have proven successful, that you'd recommend? Let us know, below in the comment section!
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