From political opinions to differences in how to respond publicly to the pandemic, division seems to be growing in our nation. Yet, this isn’t the first time that our country has experienced significant differences. With such a wide range of opinions so readily expressible through social media and other channels, it’s more vital than ever for leaders to maintain workplace cohesion. It’s important for leaders across architecture and design to limit distractions and encourage empathy to fuel the collaboration necessary in our industry. Below are some tips to help maintain a distraction free workplace.
Conflict Management
Employee conflicts are inevitable, everybody views the world differently. You simply can’t assume a passive approach for keeping peace in the workplace. Maintaining a calm, collaborative, and supportive work environment should always be a priority among leaders. Firms that aren’t proactive about conflict management will soon have toxic work environments and high employee turnover. But you can actually transform conflicts into growth opportunities using these strategies:
- Improve your hiring process – As architecture recruiters, we stress that it all starts with attracting, hiring, and retaining the right people. It becomes much easier to navigate conflict in a constructive way when you recruit more empathetic candidates with good communication skills and avoiding those who are self-centered or who lack emotional intelligence.
- Address minor conflicts right away – If you don’t deal with minor disagreements in a timely manner they can quickly escalate into major conflicts. It’s important to manage conflict as it happens and stay proactive about preventing potential issues among employees along the way.
- Provide employees with conflict resolution training – Employees need the tools and skills to work through issues with colleagues in a respectful manner.
- Strong mediation – From hearing all sides of the story to redirecting personal attacks, you have to ensure that managers know how to efficiently mediate and resolve conflicts.
- Set a positive example – Organizations with leaders who model the behaviors they want to see have much better workplace cohesion. It starts with promoting inclusive and respectful communication, reminding employees of your company’s mission, and showing compassion.
Sometimes, choosing to be happy, productive, and successful is a better path than fighting over who is right. Remember, most workplace conflicts aren’t going to just disappear, so you need to understand how to properly handle them. As architecture and design recruiters, we can help you hire better candidates. Then you can succeed at keeping the peace at work with strong conflict management and resolution training, as well as always modeling the behavior you want to see in your team members.
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