Do you ever just think, ‘I wish everyone could just do their job, so that I can do my job, instead of having to deal with all this conflict’? It would be great if the workplace worked that way, but sadly, it usually doesn’t.

Being in conflict is no fun! It’s stressful, unpleasant, distracting, intrusive and just plain annoying.
But is that all? Conflict costs money.

Did I get your attention?

Unmanaged employee conflict is perhaps the largest reducible cost in organizations today – and probably the least recognized. 

Some of the costs are obvious, like quality problems that arise when employees act on their anger instead of acting cooperatively. There are other costs that are hidden, such as employee sabotage and the impact of conflict on decision-making. Conflict has key effects on productivity, decision-making, and retention.

How much does conflict in your organization cost?  If your answer was 'too much', you are not alone.

Here are some other things to ponder:

• It is estimated that over 65% of performance problems result from strained relationships between employees – not from deficits in individual employees’ skill or motivation.
  
  
• A study by the American Management Association says that managers spend at least 24% of their time on managing conflict,
  
  
• The turnover costs for an employee is anywhere between 75% and 150% of the annual salary.
  
  
• In a recent EDS poll, 87.6% of managers claimed they spent too much time resolving disputes between employees.

The ability to manage conflict is a critical skill in today's workplace: many organizations have identified it as a core competency for managers at all levels. It is ironic that many executives hesitate to invest time and money in improving their employees' conflict management resiliency when the net added value to the company's bottom line can be documented.

To find out just how much conflict is costing your organization a free on-line cost-of-conflict calculator is available at www.mediationworks.com/tools. This eye-opening on-line calculator produces an estimate of the hidden financial cost of a specific conflict in your organization by evaluating nine cost factors. Be sure to try all the free tools in the toolbox.

impactHR’s conflict management subject matter experts are certified by the Mediation Training Institute.

View other news articles from Spetember 2009