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hi everybody i'm going to kick us off as it is at 12 30. i'm katie jacobs from cipd and i'm
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pleased to welcome you to this which is the final cipd webinar of 2020.
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since april we have run a lot of webinars to help the people profession cope with the challenges of the
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coronavirus pandemic as well as running other series on tackling racism in the workplace
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and not to mention all those other webinars run by our regional teams and our branch volunteers
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so there has been an awful lot of online activity since march and i'm sure i'm not alone in feeling a
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pretty profound sense of tiredness um and i hope that you are all looking forward to getting
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some rest to this festive period even if it's not going to be a kind of normal christmas
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but before we get there we're going to be tackling a topic this afternoon which i think has some links to the
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holidays for many of us and that is managing conflict over the next hour or so
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we're going to unpack the challenges of covid19 generated workforce friction we're going
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to learn how to recognize the behaviors that can fuel negative conflict and identify how to
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nip incidents in the bud at an early stage and discussing this topic with me this
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afternoon a panel of great experts i'm joined by rachel suff rachel is senior policy advisor
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employment relations at cipd and joined by david little founder and ceo of the tcm group
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which is the uk's leading mediation and resolution consultancy and david has also literally written the
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book on managing conflict he's the author of managing conflict a practical guide to resolution
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in the workplace thank you both um as rachel actually has to leave just
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after her presentation we've also got abdul bahab stepping in to join the q a abdul is diversity and inclusion advisor
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at the cipd and he has a lot of experience in advising organizations on dealing with bullying and harassment
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as well as in invite advising managers on how to informally resolve conflict so thank you so much abdul for stepping
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in uh to join us for that and now for the very last time in 2020 i get to do the housekeeping which uh i'm
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sure a lot of you know off by heart by now if you've attended more than one of these and the session is being recorded and we
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will be able to access it afterwards the slides will also be available and my colleagues will put where you can find
2:30
those in the chat if you'd like to submit a question and please do during the session
2:36
could i ask you to use the q a tab which you can see at the bottom of your screen but feel free to use the chat function
2:42
to make any comments to connect with each other um and we'll also be using the chat function to share any resources
2:48
are mentioned in the presentation that you might find useful so do keep an eye on that remember that the cipd coronavirus hub
2:55
is there as a resource and they're adding things to it all the time for legal advice i want to remind you
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that cipd members can call our hr inform helpline it's available 24 7 and you will get an
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individual response obviously it's not appropriate for us to take any kind of very specific questions
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on specific cases in a webinar setting we can't give you employment law advice over this medium but you can call that
3:19
helpline if you need any um if you need any employment law advice and finally i want to flag our
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well-being helpline which is available to our members in the uk and ireland working with health assured we're
3:30
providing cipd members with free help and support via sessions with qualified therapists which can be accessed online or over the
3:36
phone and health assured have also launched a new app my healthy advantage mobile app
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provides an enhanced set of well-being tools designed to improve your mental and physical health
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and you can access it anytime anywhere and we'll give you a little bit more details about that at the end of the session so
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on to this afternoon's topic while back in april we were all clapping for the nhs and there was a lot of talk of us
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all being in this together it has since become rather painfully clear that the coronavirus pandemic has
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had a far from even impact and that it has in fact created some division within the workforce while the job
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retention scheme has enabled many employers to keep people on the books many employees will be feeling anxious
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about job security which can heighten tensions among the workforce and then there's a fact that a lot of us
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are working remotely and that comes with all sorts of associated potential for miscommunication
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which can also serve to increase tension and anxiety but we all know too well that conflict
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and even bullying was a significant issue for many workplaces even before the kovic 19 crisis cipd research
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conducted earlier in 2020 found that a quarter of employees think their organization pushes issues like
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bullying and harassment under the rug and recent weeks have shown us that even the uk government is not immune to
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bullying accusations in the workplace at the most senior level so how can organizations and people
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professionals get to grips with handling conflict at work that's what we're going to explore today
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so rachel's going to give a short presentation uh followed by david rachel will be ducking off after hers but abdul will be
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joining us for q a so please do get your questions in throughout and we'll address them after the presentations
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that is it from me for now i'm going to hand over to rachel um to set some context thanks rachel thank you katie
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and thanks so so much for joining us everybody i mean it's so heartening this week
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isn't it that vaccinations have actually started in the uk
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to protect people against kovac 19 but it will take time for that to roll out it's clear
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we're still living in very turbulent and uncertain times we're now in economic recession
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we've got a lot more redundancies to come going into 2021 we're also on the verge of brexit and
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all that uncertainty so it is clear that that will filter down into organizations all that turbulence
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and organization are facing a major employment relations challenge and as katie said we know the
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pandemic has not had an equal impact it's had a disproportionate impact across different employee groups also at
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an individual level people are affected everybody's affected by the pandemic and the crisis
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but they're affected in different ways and that could be according to what sector they work in what their job role is for
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example but also a very individual level in terms of their circumstances
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and even the virus itself in terms of people's health we know some people are at higher risk
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of infection than others but also if you've got a certain personal characteristic
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you're you're at more risk but then if you've got caring responsibilities or not for example you'll be affected
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differently if you're working at home all the time or not that's different if you're furloughed or
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not if your job could be made redundant or not so even given all those different
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situations alongside that many people are facing new work demands
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different work routines which really does create the potential
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for stress also divisiveness and for some negative feelings and unhealthy conflict
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to creep into the employment relations climate so the context this wider context is a
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very complex one for many organizations to deal with and it's clear the road ahead will
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remain challenging in terms of that employment relationship going forward
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now we knew even before the current crisis that negative conflict and unfair treatment like
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bullying harassment was still a significant issue in many workplaces and i'm just going to draw out some key
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findings from the research that katie mentioned because those findings are still
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really relevant today even though we published this research on conflict in the modern workplace it
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was at the early start of the year but they're still very relevant in terms of what were the lessons what was the state of employment
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relations before we went into this crisis and what can we learn from that to help us develop
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a more positive employment relations climate and deal with these challenges going forward
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so if i could have the next slide please thank you so well first of all
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it's a positive picture if if you look at the overall findings from the survey because
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employees generally report a supportive working environment and the overwhelming
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majority say that working relations with colleagues were either good or very good
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and three in four of employees agree that their colleagues treat people with dignity
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and respect so that is what you you want and that's the research on the right
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hand side and it's on our website if you want to take a more detailed look at it so that was asking employees
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what they thought if we look at the next slide we also asked employers what do you
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think of the working environment and the culture at your organization and it was a similar perception just
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over three quarters you can see 78 said good or very good so first
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glance quite positive next slide so let's not forget that but then if we
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scratch the surface in a bit more detail and really start to look a bit deeper
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into how inclusive is the culture what what's the the enviro environment like
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we can see here that conflict in my workplace is a common occurrence according to around a quarter
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of employers again so conflict is definitely a real issue in
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workplaces if we move on and if we continue to look at what people's experiences are
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we found that around a third said that they had experienced conflict now either that was
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uh an isolated dispute of conflict on the on the left-hand side around a
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quarter told us that or it was an ongoing difficult relationship so um quite a lot of sort of different
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difficult personal situations for employers employees to navigate if we could move
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on and then if we look a bit deeper again katie's already flagged this we asked
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employees a number of questions and a quarter said that they think that challenging issues
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like bullying and harassment are swept under the carpet in my organization and that's exactly
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what we don't want we need any negative issues of conflict to be brought to the surface to be discussed
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to be resolved when they are pushed under the carpet that is when they confessed it and become really
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harmful and then on the second bullet this was a jump out finding for me
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it said one in five employees feel that the culture isn't inclusive and they agreed that colleagues reject
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sometimes others for being different and i think that really does show how not
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all not um it's not necessarily over prejudice that that makes people feel isolated
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and not included included but we want to have an environment in
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organizations that celebrate and accept everybody regardless of background
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circumstance so really that is quite indicative i think of what some of the sort of
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underlying simmering kind of not inclusive atmosphere is in organizations and then we can see
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further down 15 had experienced bullet bullying around half that harassment not of a sexual nature and
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then about four percent had experienced sexual harassment over the past uh three years
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now just before moving on to the next slide just just want to emphasize that not all conflict is negative necessarily
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in organizations actually if it's channeled um in the right way it can be productive
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even innovative but really what we're talking about here is where it's more negative conflict where it
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really does start to harm relationships it seeps into inappropriate behavior and
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so on if we could have the next slide i'm moving on because a whole area that
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really came into the spotlight in this research was the role that line managers play in workplace conflict
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and first of all i mean managers have so much responsibility on them to manage people it's often an
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add-on to their job and not enough are trained adequately but it really does come across in this
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research that disappointingly managers can be part of the problem as well as the solution
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in terms of building a inclusive culture in their teams and really
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dealing with conflict when it occurs between individuals as well and what we found was that a line
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manager when we asked employees who caused the conflict a line manager was the person
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most likely to be the cause of the conflict and also where a conflict situation was reported to a
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line manager employees told us that they were just as likely to make the situation worse
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as better so quite a negative role we found in in some cases that line
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managers are playing in terms of managing conflict in their teams then if we move on to the
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next slide just to explore this in a bit more detail we asked employees what do you think of
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your line manager and this graph shows that there are some very mixed findings i mean it's not
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all negative for example most employees trust line managers to take their
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concerns seriously twice as likely to agree as disagree
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that my line manager communicates effectively with the team so that's positive but
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there's quite a lot of ambivalence reflected in these findings as well and some negative perceptions so
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for example more just more agree than disagree that my llama line manager
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treats some team members more favorably than others so these findings still taken together
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show that line managers need to play a more positive role in resolving conflict
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and building inclusive teams if we look at the next slide
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you can see this is uh a reflection of of how there needs to be
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much more improvement in terms of resolving conflict at work there really is a disappointing
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resolution rate in terms of resolving negative conflict so first of all where employees did
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report conflict less than half said that it had been largely or fully resolved
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and also people were just as likely to be dissatisfied as satisfied with how their organization
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actually handled the conflict so that is really disappointing you know if employees that had the
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they've had the courage they've spoken up they've approached the organization but
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a lot have been disappointed with how it's been handled so if we move on to the next slide so
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given those findings and the current crisis as well and all the challenges that we've mentioned so far how can we
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reframe resolution so developing more positive and proactive
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ways of dealing with unhealthy conflict is even more important now given the need to foster inclusion
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support people through these challenging times you know the level of pressure on people will only
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have increased in workplaces and it's not surprising that the latest
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employment tribunal statistics for example show that the number of claims have
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really increased over the past few months now our research shows that it is still
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formal processes like grievance that still dominate in terms of how organizations respond to
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conflict now there will be situations a very serious accusation a really difficult
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situational dispute where individuals want a formal procedure to be used or
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and it's appropriate but there is so much more scope we can tell from that research we carried out
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to encourage more early more positive more problem solving
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ways to to resolve disputes between individuals at work and the research did
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show quite a lot of openness and willingness on the part of both employers
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and employees to embrace a more early informal problem-solving approach and i think that's very encouraging
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so there are signs that a lot of organizations are training managers and having difficult conversations
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hr is doing more facilitated discussion and troubleshooting and so on
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and mediation is used as well because we know that policies and procedures have their place but they need to know
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their place and i think the trouble is when you use policies and procedures as the default
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and you use them too quickly all the focus then in that situation can be on the actual
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procedure and it become can become very adversarial rather than on the real
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problem which is underlying the conflict and it's often more conversation more
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talking and so on that can really get to the heart of what the real problem is so organizations can be
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guided by policy definitely but not bound by it if we have the next
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slide please so on on that note a really key area where employers
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should invest more is in supporting line managers to play a positive role because they
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really are at the cold face here they are in their teams they are going to be the ones that can spot conflict that can
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encourage conversations that can be alert to any signs
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of tension in their team and we know that there is a big gap in terms
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of the expectation that employers and hr as well place on them day to day to manage those team
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relationships and the actual investment and their skills and their behavior as well
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to build the right kind of relationships these are some guiding principles
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on what their role should be and there's more detail on this in a guide
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on our website that i've signed posted to on the last slide so
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just to give you a flavor here of what ideally the role of a line manager is i mean
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first of all they need to know their team they need to foster good working relationships in the first place
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this means getting to know people as individuals appreciating the personal pressures that
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might be affecting them at work as well especially at the moment and then secondly it does mean
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monitoring team relationships in a positive way not an intrusive way
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so that they are alert to any of those similar intentions that can tip over into more serious
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conflict so they can nip any negative conflict in the bed and they shouldn't be afraid
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to challenge any inappropriate behavior when it does emerge and it does take confidence to to play
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that role as a line manager so that's why they really do need to train in the support they need to understand what that what their role is
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and how they should go about managing difficult situations like conflict
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and then thirdly by having regular one-to-ones and encouraging those informal
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conversations and feedback um they can really help um
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spot any difficult situations of conflict and also create the sort of
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environment where people feel comfortable to discuss their concerns or any issue that's becoming a problem
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so those informal conversations um are really important and then the fourth
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sort of guide in principle it's about setting expectations and acting as a role model
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because line managers will really set the tone and senior managers as well of course in a positive way
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in terms of how people in that team will behave towards each other and that does mean very visibly day to
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day live in the organization's values around dignity and respect treating every individual
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with the same level of importance not being sucked into office politics respecting people's point of view
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and so on then finally it's about that intervening early piece to help
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resolve conflict in a positive and informal way and that doesn't mean being proactive and not
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leaving things in the too difficult box and it can be daunting for a manager
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to to deal with conflict and recognize when it is tipping over into something more harmful
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it takes confidence and it takes skill being that impartial third party
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teasing out what the uh real issues are at play here and sometimes it is enough for
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an informal conversation and bringing those parties together in a really informal way if it's at an early
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stage because sometimes people don't appreciate the impact that their behavior can have
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um or that their behavior has tipped into something that's not acceptable if we have the final slide
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thank you so two key takeaways on my final slide here's the research
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that i've drawn on first of all formal policies and procedures need to know their place
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and then just returning to the line manager piece because i think that could make be such a game changer in organizations
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having line managers that are confident and capable in this space
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and as well as being able to recognize negative conflicts challenge it resolve help resolve it
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it's also very much about how line managers behave as well and in terms of how they
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play that positive role so based on years and years of research
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at cipd we have very recently in the last week or so published
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new guidance for line managers based on the kind of behaviors that they need to
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display to manage conflict to build inclusive teams and that
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guidance is signposted here in um in the box and
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it's about being open fair consistent and how you can create the kind of management development
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programme really and reinforce those behaviors amongst line managers in their organizations so
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do um tap into those resources and the research as well on our website thank you
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thank you very much um for that rachel and thanks for joining and we'll see you next time um the um slides
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will be available later today i can see somebody asking for that and also my colleagues been putting in all the useful links that rachel
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mentioned in case you want to access any of them now um thank you for putting in your questions we will come to those after david's
24:07
presentation but feel free to um to add some more in actually talking over to you david
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katie thank you so much i mean what a fantastic presentation from rachel and i also think she didn't
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mention i also think it's worth referencing the cipd hr profession map outcome oriented principles led um
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a real focus there on how the profession map can actually provide a blueprint and a
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methodology by which you can resolve disputes i think we should congratulate the cipd for the focus on management capability
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and competence and also the profession map which does as i see it provide a real blueprint
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for the hr profession for managing conference so thanks katie for inviting me to be part of today's session looking at how
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organizations can manage conflict effectively and integrate conflict management systems
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and approaches into their covert recovery and resolution strategy which i know a great many of you are thinking about
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and are developing right now as we plan for with our fingers firmly crossed we plan for the future of early 2021
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getting back to some new normal next slide please christian
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so a little bit about the tcm group so we specialize in providing confident resolution and mediation services
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very much as katy said at the the introduction very pleased we were awarded hr consultancy of the year
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at the personnel today awards um earlier this year or in november
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a real privilege to be part of that and i think it shows that the hr profession and perhaps
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organizations more widely are starting to recognize and adopt alternative dispute resolution
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mediation and restorative justice and that this approach is now becoming mainstream and recognized within
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organizations so my background personally i'm a mediator and a restorative justice practitioner and i've been running the tcm group for
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over 20 years now in helping organizations to integrate systems and approaches for managing
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conflict effectively next slide please i hope over the course of today's
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presentation i'll be sharing with you some thoughts i'm going to start off by looking i'm going to get the bonnet up on conflict what's going on when
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conflict happens the anatomy and the psychology of conflict and i hope from that you'll develop some
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actions to help you understand what's happening when people are in conflict and giving you some tools to help
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you to be able to handle those situations uh differently i'm also going to move into how i think
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hr profession you know bearing in mind what rachel said about policies and procedures one thing is for certain you cannot
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resolve a conflict by applying a gbh policy framework gbh grievance
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bullying and harassment so if the policy frameworks are important but the current systems are broken
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dysfunctional divisive pernicious insidious you choose choose the adjective to describe them
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um then we can look at an alternative system so looking at hr to be courageous as we
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move into the new normal and reframe some of the policy frameworks to adopt that outcome oriented
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resolution focus so hopefully share with you some action plans to help you as you're reframing
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your hr policies to create a culture of resolution and also i will be sharing
27:15
five tips to help managers and hr professionals to get better outcomes from conflict and
27:22
resolution so i hope that that will give you some useful actions to take away and embed in your own organizations next slide please
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christian so let's start off by looking at what happens underneath the surface what's going on
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when we experience the conflict next slide please christian so here we have two people in conflict
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he's not performing to the standard that she's expecting she's very frustrated with him he's um
27:45
you know feeling very micromanaged very undervalued undersupported and not listened to and
27:50
in technical conflict management terms he's having what's known as a proper big sulk
27:56
and he is not feeling particularly happy now this situation is a perfectly normal natural and healthy expression in any
28:03
workplace this stuff goes on in every organization up and down the country it's not the
28:08
conflict which is dysfunctional or destructive it's how we begin to manage it so let's think a little bit about
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what's going on under the surface for our two colleagues here next slide please
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the first thing that we see very quickly is that the two parties become they've got quite a binary and polarized and
28:26
positional view of the situation and of each other i'm right you're wrong i win you lose i
28:33
defend you attack or vice versa and of course we know that the best form of defense
28:38
is attack so the situation becomes very binary and polarized and actually what we look around the
28:44
hair in the organization is someone to help us a manager as rachel rightly said confident competent courageous managers
28:50
to help me after conversation maybe i look to the hr department and ask for a process a system a mechanism
28:56
to be able to resolve this what we actually find for our managers is they engage in in actions which i
29:02
will describe broadly as extensive inaction or expensive over reaction we don't get the action we
29:08
need we look at the hr function and unfortunately the quasi litigation styled
29:14
the discipline and grievance procedures actually worsen this because of course they require the parties to engage in
29:20
black and white thinking in order for the organization to get to 50 plus 1 balance of
29:25
probability to see whether a situation can be resolved so the organization's systems the failure to act and the formal policy
29:32
procedures actually create further polarity further polarization and actually enhance this methodology
29:40
that this this this mindset has been developed next slide please christian
29:45
but what's really happening we all know we everyone here knows we've all been in conflict before we know conflict
29:50
isn't black and white we know conflict isn't the burchell test we know it isn't 51
29:56
we know there's a lot more going on underneath the surface and as a mediator and someone who's worked with many
30:01
hundreds if not thousands of people in conflict i know that under the surface people are experiencing needs that haven't been met
30:08
the need to be valued to be heard to be treated with dignity to be treated with respect with
30:13
civility to be true to given information openly and transparently within the
30:19
organization and when those needs aren't met we experience a profound sense of loss i know that loss can be a
30:26
an actual loss i might lose a colleague i might lose some resources it could be a perceived loss a loss of
30:31
esteem a loss of position a lot of influence lots of power and the important driver in conflict
30:37
terms is a fear of future loss we anticipate a loss down the line because people are intelligent they're
30:43
smart so they start to develop conflict resolution strategies based on an anticipated future loss and
30:49
of course that sense of losing something we all know the you know birch hell are they the the kubler ross grief curve
30:55
the change curve of course those resulting acceptance as we know in conflict we don't get into
31:00
acceptance it just goes on and on and on so we have this amygdala i'll talk more about that we
31:06
see this as a persistent threat it creates these emotional and psychological responses the
31:11
cortisol responds to the adrenaline response and that drives how we act how we interact and how we react
31:18
that we breathe out and that we breathe in and of course the further up the organization the way we act interact and react
31:24
defines the character the climate and the culture of the organization so i'm talking in particular
31:29
about leaders but it's actually very much across our teams how our managers how our colleagues
31:35
and how the teams act interact and react and the outward side of this is destructive behavior
31:40
so if all we do is we focus on the behavior and is the behavior bad enough to be able to take an action or or or
31:47
take a sanction then we're missing an awful lot of information that's been going on beneath the surface and one of the tools
31:54
one of the actions one of the the strategies i think is important for managing conflict is to really listen to listen to
32:00
understand what's really going on for the parties and the magic of this process is party a
32:07
who thinks the other person is the devil incarnate a bully evil nasty dreadful should be sad tells
32:13
me that they they don't feel respected and valued and i speak to this devil incarnate
32:18
and this bullying this this harasser and terrible person and they tell me i don't feel respected i need to feel
32:24
respected and what's really interesting as we listen for meaning and we start to look for convergence rather than divergence
32:30
and creates a high growth rather than a fixed mindset in the parties it turns out they both need the same thing
32:37
and this is where it's really fascinating in conflict resolution terms we often in our systems and processes
32:43
focus on divergence and what's different and what's difficult not what brings the parties together and
32:48
it's that getting to yes the principled that that the principled negotiation which i think is a key tool in dealing
32:55
with some of these issues next slide piece christian so when conflict goes along as i've
33:00
mentioned it gives a sense of loss and what we often find is hr professionals as managers as leaders and
33:05
others we're presented with the uncertainty the fear the suspicion the stress the cliques the alliances the
33:10
disengagement the rumors each one of those the antecedent to each of those is a loss
33:16
if we can understand the loss we can begin to refrain the loss as a need so the loss of control i need to have
33:23
control how can i give you control what can give you a space to have a dialogue and a conversation i can help you to find a remedy and a
33:30
resolution i can help you listen and to be heard i can help you to give you some
33:35
voice and agency in the resolution process give you a sense of purpose and clarity
33:40
and actually by helping the parties to resolve the issues it begins to meet their need and resolve the issue of loss
33:47
next slide please christian and conflict unfortunately it tricks us
33:52
into behaving badly we see the other person as a threat we go into into survival instinct
33:58
the fight flight freeze or full uh approach as i've said that that's driven by this the cortisol release
34:04
and what's happened unfortunately we're stressed we're anxious we're not sleeping we're worried we're feeling uh vulnerable isolated goodness
34:11
me aren't we all feeling that at the moment and then we go to our hr department and we say i'm feeling stressed vulnerable
34:18
isolated and we say not a problem at all we'll help you and what do we do we get a great big bucket
34:23
of cortisol we tip it over their head and now we say did that help and can you now please provide a
34:29
rational response to the situation and what we do and the systems that we have for resolving conflict in our
34:34
organizations unfortunately provoke encourage and promote an increasing stressor response and in
34:40
order to be able to resolve conflict effectively we need to begin to change the system and to do that
34:46
perhaps go back to our grievance procedures our disciplinary procedures and with a big c
34:51
mark all the part of your policies that release a cortisol response in the individual that's going to result in a fixed
34:57
mindset and it's going to result in in stresses and with a d mark all the bits which
35:03
result release dopamine the positive hormone i bet there's very little d and there'll
35:09
be a lot of c now what we want to do is to promote a high growth mindset not a closed stressor response maybe a
35:17
bit of neuroscience could be useful in the way we develop our policies on this stuff okay
35:22
next slide please christian so talked a lot about the f words fight
35:27
flight freeze fall fear failure i mean it's gonna smell that's don't worry kate i'm not gonna use
35:32
that many f words but there's a lot of f words when it comes to dealing with conflict here's a lovely f word that we love
35:38
flow this comes from positive psychology the work of martin seligman and others to promote flow and it's
35:44
about building happiness it's thinking about the individual but we can apply this into an organizational and also a
35:50
a human dynamics perspective where it's a flow of ideas of empathy of understanding next
35:56
slide please christian a flow of mutual respect the flow of trust the flow of ideas bringing people together and perhaps the
36:03
role of the hr function the union function the management function the triumvirate
36:08
of the organization should be about enhancing and increasing flow and reducing the the likelihood
36:15
of the fight or flight response and the beauty of that is as we increase flow so we start to see
36:22
an increase in engagement in happiness in productivity and i would argue that flow and the
36:29
management of conflict effective management of conflict is a key driver of high performance
36:35
and high productivity and again this will be a massive focus for us in the new normal next slide please
36:42
christian so conflict is a neutral situation we're all experiencing it all
36:48
of the time it's not the conflict that's bad i love conflict i'm just going to put it out there i
36:53
think conflict can be as rachel said absolutely agree it can be a driver of productivity
36:59
performance engagement it can growth insight learning all the stuff that we need to drive a transformational
37:04
culture in our organizations it's not the conflict that's the bad it's the choices we make and the way that it's managed
37:11
and if we're going to see conflict become a functional constructive part of our organizations where it brings about meaning insight learning
37:18
growth and productivity we need to think about how we manage it and the choices we make
37:23
and it's on the hr function to help people make the right choices because they will make we have a great
37:30
capacity as human beings to make wrong choices we need people somewhere to help us make the right choices we also have
37:37
and a great and an incredible capacity as human beings when we're presented with the right
37:42
opportunities to make different choices but i need someone in my organization to help me to do that and i say one thing
37:48
for certain gbh does not help me make the right choices grievance bullying and harassment next slide please
37:55
christian this is just for the chat function really to get us thinking about this i'm
38:01
going to ask you to think i won't spend too long on this but just to get you thinking about your own experiences of conflict
38:06
what we've just talked about does it sort of strike any chords with you based on what you've had to deal with in the past
38:11
if i could give you a time machine and the benefit of hindsight wow wouldn't that be great but if i could give you a time machine
38:17
to go back in time now we know what we know about conflict what might you do differently in the way that you handle it please do feel free
38:24
to share in the chat function any thoughts reflections ideas that you'd like to share about things that
38:29
you might have done differently if you go back in time to a particular situation
38:34
that you've had that you've faced in the past okay so that's the chat function open again feel free to share and no doubt
38:41
colleagues would really value hearing your insights in your wisdom next slide please christian
38:48
okay so the the second part of my presentation is is calling out really the the policy frameworks
38:55
that exist the traditional policy frameworks that exist i i'll get off the the fence you probably heard me describing them
39:01
pernicious corrosive insidious damaging divisive i would say they're wicked mean nasty
39:07
and they are the antithesis of kind the antithesis of compassionate and they're the antithesis of a just fair
39:14
and inclusive environment so i'm going to move into what i think organizations in hr might do
39:19
differently to handle this stuff next slide please christian
39:25
we we cannot resolve and again if you've got any examples uh please do show i've been talking about this now for over 10 years
39:32
and i talked at events workshops and i'm always asking the same question have you got any examples of where
39:37
you've applied a grievance bullying or harassment policy or disciplinary procedure uh where in the organization it's added
39:44
value to the organization it's added value to the individual's working lives it's added
39:49
value in terms of created harmony productivity engagement and a propensity towards increased performance
39:56
and i'd love to hear some examples i'm still waiting for just one i'm just waiting for one and by the way ticking the box on
40:01
procedural fairness and being able to demonstrate you followed the procedure in the employment tribunal i'm afraid it doesn't count
40:07
so it needs to be demonstrating real value my experiences the traditional grievance
40:14
bullying harassment frameworks undermine relationships they tear the heart out of teams they create
40:20
fear anxiety and uncertainty at the very time when people are at their most vulnerable
40:25
next slide please christian so the systems are reactive and reductive i
40:30
talked about that right ryan polarity they invoke that within the within the individuals and perpetuate
40:36
that people are always feeling wrong-footed they're always feeling on the back foot and feeling that
40:42
they're having to defend themselves they're more concerned about mitigating risk to ensure that we stand up in the
40:47
tribunal when that might happen versus actually motivating managing and supporting
40:52
people they're designed they are really designed for the tiniest minority of people in the workforce
40:57
rather than designed for the majority they're a one-size-fits-all approach it's like reaching into the toolbox and
41:03
trying to resolve every problem in your house with a hammer and if any tool we have in our toolbox
41:09
is a hammer every problem is a nail and our employees are not nails they're hard-working motivated loyal
41:15
decent people who've worked their socks off during covert they don't want to come back into our workplaces and be
41:21
smacked over the head with a hammer they want a more sophisticated nuanced response in the workplace because
41:26
they've been delivering a more nuanced and uh and flexible response to you
41:32
and to their employers they're in intrinsically adversarial they create
41:38
the fight and actually we have to ask ourselves who really benefits from this stuff
41:43
they're binary they rarely get to the root cause of what's going on in fact very very rarely if ever the
41:49
needs of the individual and the business i mean i can't believe businesses for so long have simply sat by and allowed this
41:54
stuff to go on under their noses it just shocks me the money the time the effort
41:59
the waste it is shocking and terrible and really really does need to be cooled
42:06
down they get in the way of creativity innovation a high growth mindset and they perpetuate the kind of culture
42:13
that is undermining the organization that now might be okay if you're trading into a big trading block on your doorstep which we won't be
42:20
doing from the first of january come on uk plc we need to be better at
42:25
dealing with this stuff and motivating our people to get better outcomes next slide please christian so kind of
42:33
framework that big companies aviva tsb chelsea westminster's hospital working with
42:38
london ambulances they're adopting resolution frameworks and the resolution framework that we what that we help organizations to
42:45
implement replaces the disciplinary grievance procedure in its totality
42:50
it removes us away from those procedures it's fully compliant with the acas code which very simply put means you meet the
42:57
individual given the right to be accompanied to give them the right to appeal but the big focus is on the values of the
43:03
organization it's outcomes oriented it's person-centered promoting dialogue at the earliest
43:09
possible stages it brings together to triumvirate so it's a real focus on modern form of
43:14
pluralism hr management union working together before not after a situation
43:19
to develop resolution hubs within organizations it begins with a triage process so using
43:25
a set of objective criteria each case is assessed on its own merit and then is determined in essence of a
43:32
particular route resolution is identified in each case based on the merits and the score for that particular
43:38
case that may well be you know a conversation a facilitated conversation mediation
43:44
and in more serious cases and investigations or suspension there's no longer warnings in those
43:49
organizations they use reminders there's no longer hearings they have resolution meetings
43:55
resolution meetings using a restorative conferencing or family group conferencing model it's about all
44:01
stakeholders working together to seek resolution it's about identifying and sustaining
44:06
real resilience it's about hr or people and culture supporting the process
44:12
it's about finding effective remedies for those cases on a case-by-case basis much greater use of coaching restorative
44:19
justice facilitated conversations and this begins to really underpin the transformational culture i must
44:26
mention kate if i may the book i'm working on right now for hogan page is called transformational
44:31
culture and it's a practical guide to developing an affair just an inclusive culture in the workplace
44:37
that's that's due to be published in september 2021
44:42
next slide please christian so my final sort of couple of slides really here are my top tips for for managing conflict
44:49
effectively give the other person a jolly good listening to
44:55
listen to hear listen to understand let them know that you're listening to them listening is the most profoundly
45:02
powerful thing we do and unfortunately we might think we're good at it but my experience when we're going to organizations is we're listening to
45:08
defend not listening to understand put yourself in the other person choose and let them know you're doing it
45:14
managers often or people say to me well the manager's not you know emotionally intelligent don't show empathy it's easily done i could say let me put
45:22
myself in your shoes and try and understand what you're saying we can actually say it's called cognitive empathy
45:27
and watch the other person fall over backwards when you do it but when we ask people how does it feel
45:33
for them to have the empath have someone being empathetic and understand it they get real real um positive response
45:40
a really positive reaction to it don't touch you know we have a real culture in our
45:45
organization's boss bashing management by tutting you know there's a lot of this goes on
45:50
it's not good don't judge evaluate blame or assume ask questions be curious check
45:57
in with people give people the chance and space to speak up speak up and listen up what are fantastic things we can do
46:04
don't attack the person the person's not the problem the problems the problem and how quickly we attach the problem to
46:11
the person it's not them they're doing a hard job in hard circumstances being the best person that
46:16
they can be behind every behavior is a positive intention go and find the intention
46:22
be curious be interested but don't attack them is there not the problem
46:28
they the problem is and finally the positions that they've adopted don't just concern
46:33
yourselves with those get underneath the surface focus on their interests and their underlying needs
46:40
so those are my five tips really and to build on obviously the tips and techniques that rachel has shared and really for me these
46:46
should be the core competencies of every manager if our managers aren't using positive psychology if they're not using
46:52
behavioral science emotional intelligence principled negotiation non-violent communication if we're not giving our managers to
46:58
schools the skills to handle this stuff then the organization is negligent in the way that the supporting managers
47:04
if we don't support managers to do this stuff the organization is putting managers at risk and is knowingly perpetuating
47:12
destructive and dysfunctional conflict in the workplace and if that's the kind of organization we want to have them then that's fine
47:19
but if we want to do things differently we need to support our line managers to do this stuff better
47:24
next slide please christian so a bit of further reading that's my text katie thank you for
47:29
referencing that managing conflict just culture by sydney decker fantastic really good book
47:34
about integrating a restorative not a retributive culture discipline without punishment i must
47:40
acknowledge that text for the um the idea for reminders rather than warnings came from that but that's a brilliant book and has some great
47:46
examples of how to manage performance issues and other issues without resorting to formal uh sanction based models and
47:53
managing conflict in the modern workplace of course katie one should nod to the fantastic work that you've been doing at the cipd
47:59
to shine a light on this particular issue next slide please christian so be
48:05
innovative there's never been a better time to approach this stuff you know the conflicts from the 24th 23rd of march
48:10
they haven't gone away the zombie complex that's coming to the surface be creative and innovative if you apply
48:15
the same old systems that you were using before lockdown expect the same results i think there's a famous saying about that somewhere
48:22
isn't that about expecting different things with applying the same approach so you know rip it up to put the people and
48:29
your values at the center and build outwards from there but put the values in there ensure your
48:35
values are embedded into your policy framework support your managers and leaders and join the resolution revolution
48:40
you'll never look back there's what better time to be doing things differently final side please christian
48:47
so that's me i'm really happy to take any questions i'm happy to take questions now of course and um you can track me down by those
48:53
normal routes as well so katie thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to present today and all
48:59
that i'll stop there brilliant thank you so much david that was uh fascinating and so much
49:04
information there so i'm sure people will be rushing to download the slides just want to read a couple of the the comments
49:09
that people put in the chat in response to your questions and somebody reflecting the last two grievance cases they've been
49:15
involved with finished with dismissals or resignation but neither resolved the business cultural behavior
49:22
the point that you made about focusing on divergence rather than bringing people together is really key grievance process
49:28
nothing but invoke fear on both parties people reflecting that they wish if they
49:34
could have their time again with the conflict they would uh look at the issue from the point of view of the other party
49:40
escalate stuff more quickly rather than brushing it under under the rug and just hoping it would go away um
49:46
so i'm i'm going to come to q a now thanks for for putting those in and abdul is going to join us for that abdul can you take yourself off mute um
49:54
thank you um so the um the first question i'll put this to you first um abdul how do you deal with and identify
50:02
targeted bullying of one person especially i guess in a remote first world where you might not be able to observe
50:08
it um so so for me i mean
50:13
i mean obviously that's a that's a very uh sort of specific uh question i mean the link to
50:20
what um rachel sort of outlined in terms of line managers and and you know similar to what they
50:26
were saying that we need to prepare line managers to be able to deal with people so i mean you know it will be a long answer but to
50:32
sort of set the scene what we need to have managers to understand firstly when someone takes on
50:39
line management responsibility that they're actually managing people they need to be aware of that so
50:45
normally what happens in organizations is that someone's a functional expert in whatever they are whether it's i.t
50:51
whether it's sales and as a result of the experience i've got promoted to a team leader role or
50:56
or another role we're actually responsible now for managing people and they're never actually taught how to
51:02
go about managing people and that people are very different from other resources and you know have emotions and and you know may
51:09
react to things in in an emotional way so firstly managers need to be prepared on how to
51:14
manage people how to sort of identify all the things that rachel said how they go about
51:20
actually identifying conflict and and so on and in terms of you know
51:26
whether it's one person or whether it's a number of people it's firstly to have your regular one-to-ones with people
51:31
so that you can actually speak to them when you're having irregular one-to-ones what happens in one-to-ones with managers and their team members is
51:38
that they just talk about work-related targets how you're getting the work have you completed this assignment but also ask
51:44
about how you're getting on as a person how are your relationships with your team
51:49
if you've identified you know someone's quite quiet at a team meeting then you know in your next one-to-one
51:54
take that up you know what's happening is there is there something you'd like to bring up and through that sort of
51:59
collaborative conversation it'll help you identify any potential issues that there are
52:04
at the outset and then once you identify that there is an issue you know whether it's targeted bullying
52:10
whether it is banter whether it's you know who goes on to harassment then you start to address that issue and deal with it
52:15
at that point so in terms of identifying the actual question is have that regular
52:20
conversation with your team members and ask about things that are not just work related
52:26
or task related but also as a person how they're getting on with the work in the physical space
52:32
uh ask about their well-being you know especially in this sort of covered and remote setup but one thing that you know i'd advise
52:38
is you regularly have conversation we're asking people about their own well-being
52:43
how they're going to work any potential problems that they're facing and through those conversations you'll
52:49
start to draw out uh any potential issues that they're facing and the more you have asked those questions and initially if
52:56
it's a new team there might not be that trusting relationship or rapport but the more you ease into those
53:02
conversations the more you'll draw out of people so it's having those sort of conversations on a regular basis
53:07
will allow you to identify uh those sort of potential people who are being targeted it might
53:13
not be because they're bullying you know someone might be quiet and meeting for other personal circumstances or or
53:18
another unrelated sort of reason but at least by having that conversation you can draw out
53:23
what the underlying problems are so that would be my sort of advice is conversations
53:29
ask about their personal uh sort of um sort of social side of you know working
53:34
in a team as well as the work related uh kind of performance management side thank you i think um that kind of point
53:41
about i i feel working remotely helps kind of hinders those kind of conversations sometimes because you end
53:46
up being quite transactional and just having very project face based conversations so it's a really great reminder to build in that kind of
53:52
more well-being or social focused interaction um david a a question um i'll put to you often there are cases
54:00
where it's hr that is the problem or senior executive senior management who are
54:06
accused or deemed to have been bullying do you believe there needs to be a kind of new approach for managing such cases
54:12
so the people in these roles aren't marking their own homework or influencing others to turn a blind
54:17
eye so how do we deal when it's people in positions of influence or who are meant to be making things better that
54:22
are actually part of the problem i think so i mean it's really great and it kind of to an extent goes to the same question because i think the
54:28
last last question the slightly out of fashion term came to mind the psychological contract that trust that communication that mutual
54:35
respect that happens between the manager the the unwritten rules the expectations that aren't clearly written down but are
54:41
understood but actually if we see those those contracts breaking down across the organization it's role modeling the
54:47
wrong behaviors and we look to our leaders we look to our hr professionals our managers and union colleagues and others to model
54:54
the right behavior they create the climate by which those local issues are occurring so we need our hr
54:59
teams we need our managers and leaders to be to be better to role model the right behaviors and the way to do that
55:05
is first and foremost is to incorporate the values into how they're behaving and align their
55:10
behaviors to those core values i think for hr is if hr are the
55:15
custodians this is a real kind of paradox i think we see within the hr function hr is the
55:20
drivers of engagement of performance of talent but also the custodians of policies and procedures
55:27
which um at least best hang as a sword of damocles but at worst destroy relationships and undermine situations
55:33
and there's a real discourse that needs to be had within the hr function about which of those two does it want to because i don't think it
55:39
can be both and i think by hr aligning its policy frameworks and the management systems
55:44
that it develops with with line managers and others towards and various towards the values and driving engagement
55:50
actually creates clarity and certainty about what the function of hr is so i i think there is a real focus here and
55:57
an opportunity for hr to take a real lead within organizations as the drivers of
56:03
people and culture really understanding their needs of people understanding the needs of the workforce and aligning the culture of the
56:09
organization to the core values and embedding management systems which actually promote creativity
56:16
innovation or what i would call happy healthy harmonious and higher performing workforces so
56:22
so i think there's a great there's a great opportunity but it does this does present for me an existential threat to hr if we don't
56:28
resolve this paradox i think people are really confused what is it exactly hr stands for now and i think that's a
56:35
real challenge there and i'm building on that and to throw in another question on abdul um david mentioned the importance of
56:42
kind of the values and behaviors in hr how do you kind of make sure that those behaviors are being applied
56:48
throughout the organization and not just by a few kind of the person's use of term brave managers so how do you assess
56:56
behavior i mean if you're what david proposes is is a whole kind of whole scale um
57:05
cultures change within an organization in terms of how they view conflict how they deal with conflict so you know it's got to be part of a it
57:12
can't be something that's just brought in drips and traps if you're going to do something like that then it needs to be organization-wide it
57:18
needs to be part of a change management process and as part of that you build in some safeguards on how you go about
57:24
monitoring whether the behavior is changing and part of that might be so what i was saying in terms of
57:29
building into uh people managers roles in their kpis targets around people management targets
57:36
about around sort of conflict reduction so that then those can be those checks and balances can be
57:41
applied so you know there are you know mechanisms that you can put in place to check on that but it's a much much larger question
57:49
than just hr checking on it it needs to be part of a sort of strategic change management process that we're going to
57:55
go from uh you know kind of this is the as the gbh approach as uh david puts it we're going to
58:01
change our approach and and this is a you know kind of a change management piece that we need to do
58:06
that has someone's leading it it has buy-in you know and people are sort of brought
58:12
into it so it's not something that's imposed on managers land managers also need to buy into so it needs to be part of a project
58:18
that an organization does and rolls out over a period of time and within that they can build in those checks and
58:24
balances like putting the targets and and so on for uh confident reduction within the manager's
58:30
sort of kpis so i suppose it's a roundabout way of answering the question but i'd say it's
58:36
not just a case of putting in those checks and balances but it needs to be part of the whole process thank you
58:42
um david question here um what are your thoughts on where you have a situation where one
58:49
person's robust management style or way of way of communicating is another person's
58:54
feeling bullied how do you how do you deal with that and i mean it's a common theme but again it goes back to the point i think that
59:00
abdul was responding to around what what it means to be a manager in the organization and how we receive management i think that's that kind of
59:07
you almost get that divergence is is it's robust management perspective of the manager i'm just trying to do my job
59:12
and for the individual it's landing badly you know what's going on underneath the surface what is it the manager is trying to say
59:18
and again we know that managers and you know picking up on a point abdullah was making we need to invest on the entire life
59:25
cycle of our managers and supporting them and training them so they can give clear messages to their
59:31
and to their employees about how performance about driving performance and having better quality conversations
59:36
i talked about a culture of tutting i see that everywhere we we have the conversation in our head we
59:42
want to give the feedback and it comes out as a tattoo it comes out as a pejorative statement it comes out as a you are not doing this well then
59:49
i need you to do this we don't look for areas of collaboration we look for areas of of blame and you know we we need to as
59:57
as gandhi said i mean it might be a bit cheesy but you can't shake hands with a clenched fist yet we go forward with his fists
1:00:04
it's confrontational and we have this confrontational and competitive culture so i understand the dichotomy and i
1:00:10
understand the the point of the question for me as a mediator what i'm trying to do is understand what it is to help the
1:00:15
parties to define what is it you're trying to say what is it that you need listening to the other person reflecting
1:00:22
back and summarizing what the other person is saying trying to put yourself in the other person's shoes modifying and moderating
1:00:28
what you're saying so it doesn't come across as an attack it comes with a cost as an opportunity it's not demand it's a request so and
1:00:35
managers can be doing this themselves and they need support and again i think it goes to the hr function does the hr function hold the
1:00:41
process which is remedial when things go wrong or do we coach and mentor and mediate and facilitate those kind of
1:00:48
conversations it's a really great opportunity for hr to step in and help to break down because that that
1:00:53
difference of opinion roast bus management versus bullying it's happening up and down the country and it needs resolving it
1:01:01
and it's help resolving it thank you i'm afraid i'm going to have to draw it to a close there because i'm already uh runner
1:01:07
one minute over i'm afraid that is all we've got time for today thank you so much to david thanks abdul for stepping in and
1:01:13
uh rachel has left but thank you for her as well and thank you everyone for watching and for those of you who've
1:01:18
been with us since april i recognize some names that pop up almost every single webinar thank you so much for your engagement
1:01:25
and we really hope that these sessions have been a helpful source of support for you as you've dealt with what i think is probably
1:01:31
one of the most if not the most challenging um years in the history of your careers so
1:01:36
i really hope that you get a well-deserved break over the holidays and we're going to be back in january so
1:01:41
look out for a sec a series of webinars we're doing in january focused on helping you build your hr career so
1:01:48
those um launch on the 11th of january when they are available now to sign up to and we've also got a session on the 14th
1:01:54
of january focused on post-brexit talent planning uh that's also available to sign up to
1:01:59
now um so do look out for information about those over our various social media channels or landing in your inbox
1:02:05
but that is it for now that is us done for 2020 thank you so much for watching um goodbye and do take care of
1:02:16
yourselves