Conflict at Work
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Evan Davis and guests discuss how best to resolve disputes between colleagues - both making the best of it and avoiding the worst. Despite our best efforts, conflict never disappears – it’s always there, when humans gather. In the office, it can be start with something as trivial as a coffee cup left on a colleague's desk. And from there, it can spiral into a situation where people are unwilling to work with each other, or even suffer mental ill health as result. Three experts give advice on how to prevent conflict festering and the best ways to mediate when co-workers end up at daggers drawn. GUESTS Gill Dix, head of workplace policy at ACAS Felicity Steadman, mediator, The Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution Ade Adeniji, mediator and investigator
Producers: Kirsteen Knight, Lucinda Borrell and Sandra Kanthal Sound: Graham Puddifoot Editor: Hugh Levinson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.9 | Hello and welcome to the programme. |
| 0:07.6 | If only human beings could get along with each other, how much better the world would be? |
| 0:13.1 | Well, we might all be able to agree with that sentiment, but conflict never disappears. |
| 0:18.8 | It is always there when humans gather from within families to between nation states. |
| 0:24.9 | It is also ever present within the workplace. So we thought we might focus on that today. |
| 0:30.4 | What causes, disputes, how to manage conflict, making the best of it and avoiding the worst. And I'm joined by three |
| 0:38.6 | expert and experienced guests in this area. Firstly, Jill Dix, head of workplace policy at ACAS. |
| 0:47.1 | ACAS, Jill, just remind us what it is. It's the service that provides conciliation and good |
| 0:52.5 | practice services to employers and employees around |
| 0:55.5 | Britain. |
| 0:56.6 | As I introduce each of my guests, starting with you, Jill, I want you to think of a particular |
| 1:01.8 | conflict that you have witnessed and just tell us a little about it and what lesson this has |
| 1:06.2 | taught you. |
| 1:07.0 | I think, Evan, I'm not going to choose an ACAS case today. |
| 1:10.3 | I'm going to talk about a personal observation just from the weekend, actually, when I was out for a family meal in a restaurant. And it was quite clear that they were understaffed in the restaurant. The plates were piling up and the staff were getting a little bit fractious with each other, have to say not with the customers, and you could see |
| 1:27.8 | that the supervisor was starting to get concerned. |
| 1:30.8 | And I think that kind of event, everybody expects a busy shift sometimes. |
| 1:35.2 | But if we see that repeatedly in the workplace, over a series of days, those people coming |
| 1:40.2 | into work and experiencing that kind of stress due to low staff levels. |
| 1:44.8 | And as we know, that is one of the problems facing the economy at the moment. |
| 1:48.5 | Then I think we might need to begin to open our minds for the potential for more conflict-related |
... |
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