by Kristie Janeway Jernigan BS MHA

Created on: June 01, 2009   Last Updated: June 13, 2009

Managing employee relations can be one of the most difficult parts of a managers job. Almost everyone has had experiences with a coworker whose personality or actions have rubbed us the wrong way. Some people are just difficult by nature but the trick is to learn how to work with each individual personality to create the desired effect. Bad behaviors and strained relations become most evident when a new employee is introduced into a group of employees who were previously working well together. Dealing with this can be a true measure of a good manager. The managers ability to get all different kinds of personalities to work together in a cohesive and productive way is very telling.

Employees are actually looking to the manager for help and guidance not to add more stress. Paying attention and being an observant manager can make all the difference. Getting control of the employees that show signs of making waves in the office is something that will save a manager a lot of future headaches. If there is a group of employees that are working extremely well together then adding another personality to this group is not always smart, especially if the new personality is a strong one. The old adage of "why fix something when it is not broken?" can be seen here.

It can be difficult to work with or supervise individuals that are causing conflict. The workplace is one of the worst places that this type of thing can occur. It can cause additional, unnecessary stress in the workplace and greatly reduce productivity and job satisfaction. There are many reasons why employees become difficult to work with. It may simply be an abrasive personality that the employee has. It could be that the employee has a belief that they already know how to do everything and will not take comments or criticism of how to do their job. Whatever the issue, the first battle is deciphering why this conflict is occurring.

When a manager encounters an employee that seems to be causing problems the manager has to look at the matter objectively. You have to ask yourself if this person is not listening or unwilling to do assigned work, having personality conflicts, or simply cannot do the job. It is important that you discover the issue early on so that it does not get embedded and cause productivity to decline and tempers to rise. This can be especially bad if you have a very high stress profession.

If a manager notices that two employees are not getting along, then both employees should be talked to so that a determination can be made if they can continue to work together or need to be separated. On the other hand, if you have a new addition to the office and have had no problems until this individual was hired then you may already know where this problem lies. Sometimes when you give two employees that are not getting along time to work it out they will. However, the manager needs to keep a very close eye on things because anger and tension tends to boil over quickly and can be volatile.

There may come a time when you, as a manager, realize that you need to let someone go. If you have tried everything possible to resolve the conflict and have nothing is working then you are only left with one option. At this point you need to sit the person that you are firing down and explain to them why you have to make this decision. Perhaps, armed with this information, this employee can find a job elsewhere and not have another negative encounter. Hopefully, this employee as well as you the manager can learn from this mistake.

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