Poor workplace relationships
Practical step by step ideas, tips and suggestions to help employers of different sizes prevent mental injury and create a safe and mentally healthy workplace. Use tools, templates and resources to focus on work-related factors that impact mental health and learn good practice. Check out the full range of topics on the Toolkit.
Step 1: Learn about poor workplace relationships
What is poor workplace relationships?
Poor workplace relationships are negative interactions between employees in the workplace that may be harmful. These interactions can start with behaviour such as sarcasm, mocking or social exclusion and if not addressed can lead to more damaging interactions such as bullying, violence and aggression.
Poor relationships aren't just limited to employees. Poor relationships with clients, customers or the community in general can also have a negative impact.
Some examples of poor workplace relationships include:
- Workplace harassment, gendered violence, discrimination or other unreasonable behaviour by employees, supervisors or clients.
- Poor communication between colleagues such as mocking, sarcasm and social exclusion.
- Conflict between employees and their supervisors, managers or other employees due to lack of role or task clarity.
- Hostile working environment due to unresolved conflict between employees or between supervisor and employee.
How can poor workplace relationships affect your business?
Poor workplace relationships can harm your business in several ways. They can lead to lower productivity, reduced morale and increased absences and mental injury claims. They could even lead to staff resignations, requiring additional time and money to hire and train new staff. Conflict may especially become a factor if it remains unresolved, becomes particularly intense or becomes work-related bullying.
What are your rights and responsibilities at work?
Employers must provide and maintain a workplace that is safe and free from risks to health, including psychological health, so far as is reasonably practicable.
Employees have a responsibility to take reasonable care of their own health and safety in the workplace, and the health and safety of others. They must also cooperate with employers to create a safe environment.
Follow the risk management process below to create a mentally healthy workplace and prevent poor workplace relationships.
Step 2: Consult your employees
Consultation can be done in a number of ways. Depending on your workplace, it can be as simple as casually walking around your workplace having a conversation, or as formal as setting up a health and safety committee.
Good consultation has lots of benefits – it leads to better decision making and greater cooperation and trust between employers and employees, who get a better understanding of each other's views.
Consultation isn't just good practice though, it's actually a legal requirement for employers. Employers must consult with employees including health and safety representatives (if any), about matters that directly affect, or are likely to directly affect, their health and safety, so far as is reasonably practicable. This includes identifying whether poor workplace relationships may be a hazard at the workplace, and working out how to eliminate or reduce the risk of them occurring. At a minimum, consultation must involve sharing information about any health and safety issues, giving employees reasonable opportunity to share their views on those issues, and taking those views into consideration.
Learn about your rights and responsibilities, as well as how best to consult
Step 3: Identify hazards and risks
A hazard is anything that has the potential to cause harm to a person. Think of hazards like 'situations' or 'things' in the workplace that can hurt someone, either physically or mentally. The risk is the potential of the harm actually happening.
For example, a cable on the floor is a physical hazard. The risk is being physically injured from tripping on that cable. The same applies to hazards that affect our mental health – these are known as psychosocial hazards.
Poor workplace relationships are an example of a psychosocial hazard. The risk is that experiencing poor workplace relationships could lead to a mental injury.
Examples of poor workplace relationships
- Task conflict
Task conflict can arise over resources, procedures and policies or disagreements about facts. Low levels of task conflict can encourage creative thinking and problem solving. However, high levels or long-term conflict can limit employees’ ability to focus on the task at hand and that may create stress.
- Low role clarity
This can occur when tasks are not clearly allocated so there are conflicts over uncertainty around whose role it is to perform the task. Duplication or unintentional role duty changes can result in conflict.
Lack of systems which allow employees to raise concerns about any conflicts they have within their role and responsibilities.
- Relationship conflict
Harmful behaviours between employees resulting from a lack of fairness and equity in dealing with organisational issues or where performance issues are poorly managed.
A hostile or isolating working environment either due to acts directed towards the employee or group of employees being targeted or exclusion of the employee or group of employees can lead to relationship conflict.
- Bullying
Ongoing and unresolved relationship conflict may result in workplace bullying. Workplace bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed at an employee or group of employees that creates a risk to health and safety. Employers need to have processes in place to ensure that any allegation of bullying or identified bullying in the workplace is investigated and action taken to eliminate it, as far as reasonably practicable.
Often multiple hazards can be present at the same time and can combine to increase the risk of harm occurring. Identifying poor workplace relationships as a hazard and understanding factors that contribute to them occurring is the best way to prevent them from happening.
Poor workplace relationships can happen wherever people work together. Some things might make poor workplace relationships more likely, such as:
- poor communication between employees
- leadership that doesn’t provide sufficient or equal support to employees
- employees that work remotely, alone or in isolation
- insufficient training including inductions
Managing these factors well should decrease the risk of poor workplace relationships.
Step 4: Assess the risks
A risk assessment will help you understand the risks to your employees' health, and how to prioritise your efforts to manage them.
It is good practice to identify hazards, both individually and together, that are creating risks to health and safety. Once you have identified the hazards, you can assess the risk of them occurring.
Risk assessment tips
- Identify the source of poor workplace relationships
Poor workplace relationships can be organisation-wide or apply to specific employees or groups of employees, or specific work tasks.
- Consider if hazards are occurring in isolation or together
Poor workplace relationships may co-occur with another hazard. For example, poor support by leadership may be increasing the risk or contributing to poor workplace relationships between people or teams. Look at the root cause of the problem, rather than just the poor workplace relationships behaviour itself.
- Consider who is more at risk of poor workplace relationships
Poor workplace relationships can affect individuals or groups.
- Consider the seriousness of the risk
Consider how often and for how long employees are exposed to poor workplace relationships. Think about the potential impacts on mental and physical health if the risk is not managed. Poor workplace relationships can involve a single incident, or build up over time.
Step 5: Control the risks
A control simply means 'ways to manage' an issue. Controls are things you put in place to eliminate or reduce risks. The list could be endless, but it's really just about taking action, so far as reasonably practicable, to manage the risk of poor workplace relationships developing in your workplace.
Here are some ways that employers can take action (or 'implement a control') to create a safe workplace.
- Setting up systems and expectations for behaviour
- A code of conduct.
- Team rules of engagement or developing a team charter in consultation with team members.
- Training and clear accountabilities for supervisors and managers to deal with harmful behaviours.
- Conflict resolution processes such as mediation, facilitated discussions or conflict coaching as options for resolving complaints of harmful behaviour.
- Communication processes to reduce task and relationship conflict
- Encouraging employees to have input into procedures and tasks.
- Involving employees in decisions that may impact on their task, where possible.
- Supporting open communication and encouraging employees to share their concerns about work-related conflict at an early stage.
- Regular team meetings to discuss pressures and challenges within the work unit.
- Providing employees ways to raise concerns about any conflicts they have within their role and responsibilities.
- Lead by example and demonstrate commitment
Employers and managers set the workplace culture. They should model desired workplace behaviours and show a clear commitment to preventing poor workplace relationships.
Relationships with managers and co-workers can positively or negatively affect the way an employee feels. Where groups of people work together it is likely that conflict will arise from time to time. It is the employer and managers responsibility to promote a culture where colleagues trust and encourage each other to perform at their best and work collaboratively to resolve interpersonal conflict early.
- Provide inductions and training
During onboarding, employers should discuss acceptable behaviours and refer to relevant OHS policies and procedures. Employees should also receive regular training on how to prevent and respond to poor workplace relationships, this should include clarity on how to report or respond to poor workplace relationships early to prevent escalation into other hazards such as bullying or violence and aggression.
- Develop a policy
A policy is not legally required but it is best practice. A policy could define poor workplace relationships and outline how everyone is expected to behave and be treated. It should also include:
- steps on how to report an incident
- what actions will be taken to protect employees
- what support services and referral pathways are available
This can be a standalone document, or part of your general occupational health and safety (OHS) policy.
Where possible encourage employees to have input into procedures that are related to workplace behaviours.
This can be a standalone document, or part of your general Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) policy.
Where possible encourage employees to have input into procedures that are related to workplace behaviours.
Information about how to create a policy or procedure
A social media policy is also useful for setting out how to use social media at work and expectations for use outside of work. This is especially important given the risk of poor workplace relationships occurring online.
If you have a policy, make sure everyone knows where to find it!
Remember to measure the effectiveness of existing controls to see if they’re working and look for new ways to control the risks.
Step 6: Share, review and improve
A safe and mentally healthy workplace needs ongoing commitment and engagement.
If you have a policy, review it every year or when new information about poor workplace relationships becomes available. You want to check whether the controls you've implemented are still relevant and effective (i.e. training, reporting).
By sharing the outcomes of these reviews, as well as suggestions and recommendations for improvements, you can keep the conversation going. This will continue to build trust and cooperation between you and your employees. Consultation must be undertaken before making any changes to the workplace, things used at the workplace, or the conduct of work at the workplace, and these changes should be communicated to your employees.
Here's an idea! Set a calendar appointment now to review your policy in 12 months.
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Disclaimer: The WorkWell Toolkit provides general information only. Please consider your specific circumstances, needs and seek appropriate professional advice.
