Workplace conflict – effects and signs

All workplaces experience conflict from time to time

Conflict happens when 2 or more people disagree. It is common in workplaces. And it may not always be bad. There are different types of conflict, including task-based conflict and relationship-based conflict.

Task-based conflict relates to different views about work-related ideas, decisions or actions. Task-based conflict may show that tasks are unclear, rushed, poorly resourced or misaligned with priorities of different teams. 

However, task-based conflict may also reflect healthy differences in perspectives or viewpoints. Finding ways to create space for respectful disagreement or challenging ideas can increase creativity and improve outcomes. This may include:

• Encouraging people to raise issues and disagree without fear of reprisal – An issue festering beneath the surface, when brought out into the open, may turn out to be a minor issue that can be easily addressed and resolved.
• Assigning a devil’s advocate to stimulate alternative viewpoints – If a team, department or organisation is stagnating, bring in new people to ‘shake things up’.
• Creating a friendly competition among teams – For example, have 2 product development teams compete on designing a new product.
• Building some ambiguity into the process – When individuals are free to come up with their own ideas about how to complete a task, the outcome may be surprising, and it allows for more healthy disagreements along the way.

Conflict in the workplace can be a good thing when it’s respectful, increases creativity and improves outcomes. But, workplace conflict based on personality clashes or disagreements over personal values can have negative effects. 

However, relationship conflicts – personality clashes or disagreements over personal values – can have negative effects. Examples of relationship conflicts that can have negative effects include:

• trying to prevent someone from developing and maintaining positive relationships with others in the workplace 
• being rude and discourteous towards someone
• displaying sustained hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviour towards someone
• bullying and harassing another person. 

In addition to the negative effects of these actions on other people, these types of behaviour may constitute bullying and be unlawful. 

Negative workplace conflict affects individuals and organisations

When conflict is unproductive or feels personal, it can have negative impacts including: 

• psychological ill-health e.g. anxiety, depression
• poor physical wellbeing e.g. headaches, gastrointestinal upsets, high blood pressure
• poor job satisfaction
• substance abuse.

For an organisation, conflict in the workplace can lead to:

• lower productivity
• higher absenteeism
• higher presenteeism
• higher staff turnover
• dispute resolution and workers compensation costs
• negative publicity and media coverage.

Financial costs of negative workplace conflict

Studies have attempted to measure the financial costs of negative workplace conflicts. These studies attempt to capture 3 types of costs: 

• direct costs (e.g. health and medical costs)
• indirect costs (e.g. productivity-related losses)
• intangible costs (e.g. decreased quality of life). 

Identify negative conflict in your workplace

The signs of conflict can vary, depending on people and workplaces. Some conflicts are obvious, but others are less so. 

Some ways that conflict may be expressed in the workplace include:

• change in behaviour of team members – e.g. someone contributing less to meetings than they used to
• avoidance from team members towards other team members
• aggressive (or even violent) behaviour
• verbal disagreements
• team members taking more days off work than usual
• increased number of resignations
• slow productivity
• petty theft – e.g. exaggerating expenses or taking home small items such as stationery
• mischief or misbehaviour – e.g. workers deliberately breaching rules
• industrial sabotage – e.g. physical destruction of property, using social media to undermine people, products or services.