Conflict resolution at work: choosing a route

Conflict resolution at work involves several routes, and most people know about one of them. The routes are not interchangeable. They differ in who controls the outcome, what becomes a record, who else finds out, and whether the thing can be stopped once started.

Choosing badly is the commonest expensive mistake in this area, and it is nearly always made by somebody who did not know the other routes existed.

What to take away

The routes

Direct, between the two of you. The cheapest, the fastest, and the one that preserves the most. It requires you to describe a specific event and its effect rather than a pattern of behavior, and to be genuinely willing to hear what you did. It leaves no record, which is its main advantage and its main risk.

Your manager, informally. Useful when the dispute involves work allocation, decision rights, or priorities, because those are things a manager can actually settle. Less useful for anything about conduct, where a manager has a stake in the team looking functional and cannot be neutral.

A manager above both parties. The route for a genuine collision between two people doing their jobs correctly, where somebody has to say which objective wins. That sentence is unpleasant to say, which is why these disputes so often get pushed back down as interpersonal problems when they are structural.

An ombuds office, where one exists. Independent, informal, off the record, and not part of any formal process. The distinctive feature is that talking to one does not start anything: the services an ombuds office offers are typically confidential and non-binding, which makes it the only route that lets you think out loud about options before committing to any of them.

Human resources. Necessary for anything involving conduct covered by policy or law, and the right route when a record is what you need. Understand before starting that HR's client is the organization, that some things cannot be unheard once said, and that a conversation may trigger a process you did not intend to trigger.

Mediation. A neutral helps both parties reach their own agreement. Voluntary on both sides, which is what makes it work and what limits it. The output is an agreement the parties wrote rather than a ruling, and it is the strongest route available for a relationship that has to continue.

A formal grievance or complaint. Slow, on the record, and difficult to withdraw. It exists for the cases that need it, and the reasons to use it are real. It is not a stronger version of the informal routes; it is a different thing with different consequences for everyone involved. Check your organization's written grievance policy for the applicable steps and any required form; procedures vary by employer.

How the routes differ

The column people underweight is the last but one. A route you cannot stop is a different decision from one you can, and the moment to think about it is before the first conversation rather than after.

The line informal routes should not cross

Some matters are not private disagreements at all, and where employment law covers the conduct, an informal resolution between two people is not a resolution.

Whether raising a concern is protected depends on the law and circumstances. For discrimination covered by federal law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to covered employers, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces it. The EEOC's guidance on retaliation describes protections that may apply when someone raises a covered concern.

The practical version for a manager: if what you are hearing concerns conduct rather than work, stop trying to settle it and find out what your organization requires you to do with it. Settling that kind of thing quietly is a common, well-intentioned error and it removes protections from the person who raised it.

Before you choose

Three questions answer most of it. What outcome would actually satisfy you, described concretely rather than as an apology. Do you need this on the record, or do you need it to go away. And can you still work with this person afterwards, or is that already gone.

The third question is the one people skip and it changes everything. If the working relationship has to continue, the routes that produce a ruling are worse than the routes that produce an agreement, even when a ruling would go your way.

The mechanics of running the conversation once you have chosen are set out in conflict resolution. Describing a specific event and its effect, rather than a pattern of behavior, is a writing problem as much as a temperament one, and the form is in executive communication.

A large share of workplace disputes are decision rights nobody assigned, and sorting those is control and influence. Where the fix is a trade, prepare it as one; see negotiation. If you are the senior person these disputes are brought to, the reason you hear about them so late is described in leadership influence.

Common questions

We have no ombuds office. What is the nearest substitute?

Somebody senior in another part of the organization with no stake in the outcome, approached with an explicit request: I want to think this through with someone, and I am not asking you to do anything. Say that second part plainly, because otherwise people reasonably assume they are being asked to act.

How do I find out what HR will do with something before I tell them?

Ask that question first, in the abstract: what happens if somebody raises something in this area, and at what point does it stop being informal. It is a fair question, it is usually answered honestly, and it is much better asked before than after.

My manager is one of the parties.

Then they are not a route. Go to the level above, to an ombuds office if one exists, or to HR depending on what the dispute concerns. Say plainly why you are not going to your manager, because the omission will be noticed and an unexplained one looks worse than the explanation.

Is mediation an admission that we failed to sort it out?

It is an acknowledgment that two people who both want a working relationship have not been able to reach one alone, which is common and not shameful. The alternative most people choose instead is avoidance, and that is genuinely a failure, just a quieter one.

How long should the direct route get before I escalate?

One clear conversation and one follow-up. If the behavior has not changed after that, further attempts are unlikely to work and you have a good record of having tried, which every other route will ask about.