We spend a third of our lives at work, so it’s no surprise that when things aren’t going well we are miserable.
And work is even more highly charged now thanks to a flat job market and reports that 5.2% of people are unemployed.
HR expert Lisa Oakley says that while conflict in the workplace can drive innovation, it can also turn toxic. She joined RNZ’s Afternoons to answer questions about those gnarly workplace disputes.
Someone at work pushes my buttons all the time. Even when I swear to myself, I won’t react and I manage for a bit, but he keeps needling, and then I can’t stop myself. How can I break this cycle?
Work through what’s fact, what’s reality and what’s perception. The way to do that is probably to try and quantify or measure using some sort of objective system, around what it is that’s happening when you’re being triggered.
Assess yourself and your response; what’s going on for you, what’s the catalyst? what’s the stimulus? And then work out how real is that?
Maybe you can talk to somebody else in the environment that can give you some tips and tricks on how to approach it.
You could approach it yourself. That can often end up being a bit explosive. You end up having a tête-à-tête and coming worse off with your boss, which is not ideal.
Or you could approach it with your boss, but your boss is going to want to know specifics, not just perceptions or feelings. They’re going to want to know facts.
Can a boss create a culture where conflict is less likely to happen?
Yes, having a healthy culture is all about expectations, what is reasonable in this environment? What’s above the line? What’s below the line? Knowing what’s going to tick your colleagues off before you tick them off.
Finding out after the fact is tricky, whereas if we set the expectations as a community, as a group, that might be through a charter – that’s a common thing that management teams do.
What are our strengths? What are our values? What are we trying to achieve here? How do we want to go about it?
We often don’t talk about those sorts of things until something goes wrong.
Do you think New Zealanders are at a disadvantage because we expect everyone to be mates?
I would go one step beyond that. I don’t think we’re great, stereotypically, at giving or receiving feedback.
If we were good at getting feedback on the regular, then we’d know where we were at. This is peer-to-peer or subordinate-to-manager.
How often do you see a subordinate confident enough to say to their manager, ‘it was great when you did this’, or ‘I’d really appreciate if you do this differently in the future’? That just doesn’t happen in our culture,
And vice versa managers are too worried about saying the wrong thing than giving people legitimate feedback about how they’re tracking. So, six months, 12 months goes by, and they’re frustrated. Poor old employee doesn’t know that they’re not on track, and they get hit with a performance improvement plan, and it’s all out of the blue. That’s a Kiwi thing.
Should I have to change my communication style just to appease somebody that I work with?
I suppose it comes down to what outcome you’re seeking and whether or not you want to improve your own overall effectiveness and perception.
We all want to be liked. We all want to be amicable and get on with our colleagues, so how much do you value that? We often talk about prickly pineapples, and if you want to have a reputation for being a prickly person, then don’t bother, but if you want to move into a different role or be perceived as being able to collaborate well, teamwork, all that good stuff, that’s probably going to lead to your next promotion, then, yeah you probably need to adapt your style.
Is there a definition of bullying?
I think bullying is a big deal in New Zealand workplaces, and it’s a term that’s either over or underused yet with little understanding or interpretation of.
I am a licensed private investigator, so I go into workplaces and do conduct investigations. I’ve got to determine whether or not the facts as set out by the complainant occurred. Did this happen? Yes or no? Then if it did happen, does it meet a threshold or a standard for bullying and or harassment?
The WorkSafe definition is a pretty good one – repeated unwanted conduct that causes harm. It’s really about repeated conduct. If somebody explodes in the lunchroom at you, it’s probably not repeated conduct, it’s probably not bullying.
It might be sufficiently serious as a one-off thing, but it’s probably not going to meet that threshold.
Our personable and popular manager is reluctant to resolve a problem with one colleague which has led to one resignation under duress, and another is contemplating resigning. How to approach this dilemma?
What we’re seeing a lot more of now, because the job market is challenging, people used to vote with their feet, but with unemployment creeping up, people are making more and more anonymous disclosures – whether that’s through the whistleblower pipeline or the protected disclosures routes.
Popular manager is probably like most mid-level managers in New Zealand, passive and avoidant and not wanting to tackle this thing and hoping that we’ll all just get along.
But if it’s really contributing to people’s wellbeing and mental health and then obviously exits as a result, which are unfortunate, then is it your responsibility to solve or is it just your responsibility to inform your employer and then what channels are available to them to resolve it?
In this situation, depending on how severe, I’d probably get some sort of representation or advice.
My colleague takes credit for my ideas. Is it petty to correct them?
I think it comes down to what you value and what’s important to you.
If somebody was taking credit for my ideas, if they said that in a meeting, I did such and such, I’d say teamwork, all part of the effort, we’re all contributing to the solution.
So we’re all part of the win, if you like. I’d probably kind of brush it off like that.
But if it gets on your nerve, could you approach them about it directly? If you did, then you’d have to be pretty careful about that and the potential consequences of that going wrong, because it just escalates and you become a bit of a target.
We are in a family business where one person can be quite angry and treat another family member quite horribly. It’s very inappropriate, but it’s also very difficult to address being family.
Lots of New Zealand businesses are family businesses, you probably want an intervention, don’t you?
What is that person who gets hot under the collar really concerned about? Is it performance, productivity, customer satisfaction?
Probably you care about the same thing that they care about it, just the way that they’re going about it isn’t appropriate or isn’t in line with your culture and values.
So have you defined those things and have you sat down and said when you do this, this is what I experience. How would you like it to be different? What could you do differently? It’s sort of a little bit of an ask rather than a tell, particularly in a family business, having to be sensitive of all those different relationships.
What do you do if you just don’t like your boss?
I think it’s about understanding why you’re there, what’s important to you.
Is this job going to be the key to your next job? In which case, your boss needs to think you’re the bee’s knees. So, there’s an element of playing the game.
If your boss is a toxic manager, again, calibrate that objectively, independently, get some sort of measurable assessment of that, and then work through what the options are that are available to you.
And if it’s a large employer, typically there are dispute resolution processes. There’s an employment relationship problem section in every employment agreement. It’s a mandatory clause.
Usually that results in a mediation with MBIE. The trick is for most folks that go down that route, once you’ve created that conflict or triggered that with your employer, it’s pretty difficult to come back from. So, you’d want to shore up an option external to the organisation if you wanted to take your employer on.
Is it OK for a manager to say if you’ve got a conflict with your colleague, you need to sort it out yourself?
To some extent it would be better if more conflict was resolved one-to-one like that. Here we are saying managers aren’t managing because they’re not taking responsibility but, we’re all avoidant to some extent.
If we were able to just sit together, talk it through, what I need is this, what do you need, how can I help you be more effective in your role, what does good look like for you?
But we tend to sit on things, and they stew, and passive-aggressive behaviours get a bit insidious, aggressive behaviours get a bit dominant and then, sit in that bullying category.
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