7.3 Spotlight on Human Resources Skills

As a Human Resources professional, remaining impartial is essential in problem-solving and conflict management. When employees share their concerns and describe their conflicts, it is only human to form your own opinions. While a Human Resources professional is a coach, you are not a parent or a good friend, so it is inappropriate to share your thoughts on the matter. You are to remain impartial. So, how do we ensure impartiality? Let’s examine how you can focus on the topic, stay objective, and ensure impartiality.

What Does it Mean to be Impartial?

To be impartial in a workplace conflict, you will guide the employees involved toward resolution without imparting your opinions and biases. As a Human Resources professional, you want to avoid assumptions about people, stereotypes and making judgments. It is essential to ensure that you do not have a personal or professional stake in the situation’s outcome.

Avoid Assigning Blame or Taking Sides

Employees will share their side of the story in a workplace conflict. This is your opportunity to ask probing questions to help uncover what is at the heart of the matter.

An example of a probing question might be, “I understand you don’t want to work with Manuel on this project. Can you tell me what made you feel this way?”

Conscious and Unconscious Bias

Everyone has bias. In Human Resources, it is important to acknowledge your conscious bias and try to uncover your unconscious bias. Whether you are interviewing job candidates, problem-solving, or resolving a workplace conflict, your bias may impact your approach and the outcome of the situation. Let’s learn more about conscious and unconscious bias.

Conscious Bias

Conscious bias means we are aware of our own bias. For example, you might be a volunteer at the local food bank, and you learn that a job candidate also does volunteer work. You are aware of your bias for individuals who do volunteer work, so you have to focus closely on the candidates’ experience and education.

Unconscious Bias

Unconscious bias means we act without awareness of our prejudice. For example, you are interviewing for three new positions in the warehouse department. When the interviews are complete, and your new hires start work in the warehouse, one of your co-workers says, “Wow, everyone speaks Spanish.” For the first time, you realize you may have an unconscious bias toward Spanish-speaking people as this is your heritage.

Avoid Assumptions

It is easy to approach a problem or conflict with assumptions. As a Human Resources professional, you will get to know your co-workers, including their personalities, work ethic, preferences, and habits. You might assume that because you have worked with someone for a long time, you understand how they think. When we assume we know the reason for a conflict because we know the individuals involved, we fail to ask probing questions and uncover the real reason for the disagreement.

An example: Two employees are involved in a workplace conflict, Elise and Ricardo. Elise is Ricardo’s supervisor. You have met with Ricardo on two earlier occasions regarding their attendance issues. When you hear about the latest conflict between Ricardo and Elise, you automatically assume the conflict is about Ricardo’s ongoing attendance issues. Upon further investigation, you find Ricardo has been going through a divorce and is struggling at work. You realize your assumption was wrong.

Focus on the Facts

As you guide employees through a problem or workplace conflict, it is important to focus on the people and their emotions. An employee may be extremely angry, and their voice is raised. Often the loudest person in the room gets the most attention. As a Human Resources professional, you need to remind yourself to focus on the facts. It is easy to be distracted by the loudest person in the room, but you need to uncover the root cause of the conflict and address the facts.

Create a Consistent Approach

You are going to deal with workplace conflict regularly. As we mentioned in Chapter 1, it comes with the territory when you work in Human Resources. Establishing a consistent approach to conflict resolution helps you to remain objective. This might involve creating a standardized form for interviewing the parties involved in a workplace conflict. This document is similar to a safety investigation form and allows you to record the date, time, employee names, witness names, and the details of the disagreement. A standardized set of questions will keep you on track and signal to your employees that you are always consistent in your approach to conflict resolution.

Don’t be the Judge, be the Coach

You will be the final decision-maker on several topics while working in human resources. What goes into a new workplace policy, what is the content of your new employee orientation program, and which employee assistance provider should you hire?

When it comes to problem-solving and workplace conflict, you should see yourself as a facilitator or coach who provides the parties with the opportunity to resolve their own conflict. You will demonstrate empathy and ask probing questions that uncover the real issue from each person’s perspective. At times, you will help translate or clarify what each person is saying so the other person can understand it. Being a coach is the best way to introduce conflict-resolution skills to employees.

Helpful Phrases

They say practice makes perfect. It becomes easier over time when you practice having a neutral mindset as you listen to employees describe a workplace conflict. Rather than saying, “You are right” or “You are wrong”, create a list of phrases that allow you to maintain your neutral stance.