Dealing with no-win employee relations issues is a fact of life for most employers at some point. In fact, it often happens a lot more than an employer would like to see it happen.
What often happens is, one employee complains about another employee or supervisor, and when the accusations are brought forward, a lot of times they can be hard to substantiate especially when the situation seems a little trivial or even silly.
One common mistake employers make, however, is ignoring employee complaints. Even the seemingly trivial complaints.
The employer hears the complaint and thinks if he/she ignores it that it will just go away or blow over. But responding in this manner can often only compound the problem later and explode at some point . Also, it can certainly breed an unproductive work environment.
No matter what instinct you may have about an employee’s complaint, you never want to ignore it or discount it.
Obviously there’s a conflict of some sort that has occurred, which caused the employee to come forward and voice a complaint. So that complaint needs to be dealt with no matter what.
One way to deal with an employee’s complaint is to have a supervisor/manager act as a go-between and arbitrate the solution with the help of your human resources department.
If you don’t deal with the complaint, you’re encouraging unwanted employee behavior. That’s why it’s important to “nip it in the bud” by dealing with it and working towards a resolution.
A No-Win Example and How to Respond
I once worked with a company who had an employee complain that another employee was ‘un-friendly.’
The employee filed the complaint, and then the employer came to me and said, “What do I do?” And so I told the employer to go back and clarify what the employee meant by ‘unfriendly.’
The employer ended up finding out that the employee was complaining because another employee never said, “good morning.”
Now as silly and trivial as this complaint sound to some, the employee still claimed that she actually felt uncomfortable because of it.
So one thing you always want to make sure you do is take employee complaints seriously. No matter how silly the complaint might sound.
Think of it in this manner: Perhaps the employee is highly sensitive. Nevertheless, if he/she is complaining about a situation , then he/she must feel strongly about the issue.
Your next step would be to ask the employee frankly, “How important is resolving this matter to you? Do you feel comfortable approaching the other person and discussing it?”
Assuming the employee says “yes,” you can take some action to mediate a conversation between the two employees or encourage the employee to confront the employee one-on-one. It’s important to get all parties involved to commit to creating a healthy work environment.
If the employee says “no, it’s not that important,” then you should always still try and encourage the employee to discuss it with the other employee, or at least offer to bring it to the employee’s attention as their supervisor/manager with their permission.
In the example I mentioned above, the employer took the initiative to educate the employee about the work environment. The employer said: “You’re going to be dealing with a variety of personalities and you need to learn to accept the diversity of personalities found in any work environment. If someone doesn’t want to say ‘good morning,’ then sometimes that’s just how it is.” As long as it is not interfering with the employee’s job duties/performance then he/she should just try and move past it somehow.
As long as you take all employee complaints—no matter how trivial—seriously and deal with them in the appropriate manner, you should be able to maintain a friendly and professional work environment for all.