Poor workplace relationships including interpersonal conflict

The first step is to identify hazards in your place of work. This means looking at everything from the work environment to work tasks, how they’re carried out, and the way work is designed and managed.

Typical situations that may lead to workers experiencing poor workplace relationships and interpersonal conflict include:

• incivility (abrupt rude behaviour) or other inappropriate behaviour is demonstrated and/or tolerated by management and co-workers
• frequent or heightened task conflict between workers, supervisors, co-workers and clients or others
• discrimination or other unreasonable behaviours by co-workers, supervisors or clients
• a lack of fairness and equity in dealing with workplace issues or where performance issues are poorly managed
• unresolved issues or concerns regarding work tasks, processes, customers, interpersonal issues
• a lack of processes to address reports of unacceptable behaviour.

Sometimes, a worker may avoid reporting concerns because:

• it’s thought to be ‘part of the job’ and nothing can be done about it
• the worker believes that only ‘serious incidents or issues’ are to be reported
• there’s a belief that nothing will happen if they report
• the worker believes they will be blamed for not being able to handle the job
• the reporting process is time-consuming and complex
• the workplace culture encourages “just getting on with it”.

To determine if poor workplace relationships and interpersonal conflict is a potential hazard in your place of work:

• talk with health and safety representatives, health and safety committees and workers
• walk through and inspect your place of work, including how people interact
• review workers’ compensation claims
• refer to industry standards and guidelines
• review the hazard and incident reports, exit reports and complaints.

Psychosocial hazards may interact or combine to increase the overall psychosocial risk so need to be considered together.

A risk assessment involves thinking about what could happen if someone is exposed to a hazard (the consequence of exposure) and the likelihood of it happening.

A risk assessment can help you figure out:

• the severity of a risk
• whether any effective control measures are in place
• what actions you can take to control this risk
• how quickly you should act.

To determine the likelihood that someone will be harmed by poor workplace relationships and interpersonal conflict, ask yourself:

• has it happened before, either in this place of work or somewhere else?
• if it has happened, how often does it happen?

To determine the possible consequences, ask yourself:

• will it cause minor or serious injury, or death?

After the risks have been identified and assessed, you'll need to control them. Risk control measures should be selected based on highest protection and most reliability.

Control measures

• Eliminating the risk
  The most effective control measure is to eliminate the hazard and associated risk. If you are unable to eliminate the hazard, you must identify ways to ensure you are managing it in a way that minimises risks to health and safety.
• Minimising the risk
  If it’s not reasonably practicable to eliminate the hazard, the risk should be minimised by using a range of control measures, for example:
  • Identify and minimise work design issues that may negatively affect team communication (e.g. competition or isolated work groups).
  • Provide opportunities for workers to get to know each other and build positive relationships.
  • Implement and maintain a system to manage inappropriate workplace behaviours in accordance with the Code of Conduct.
  • Monitor the work environment for potential disagreements, factors or situations that may result in conflict and address these promptly.
  • Encourage respectful discussion and sharing of differing views and ideas among workers and within the team.
• Using administrative controls
  You must also use administrative controls if there is still a risk after you’ve tried to reduce it with other control measures. Administrative controls protect your workers by working in ways that reduce their exposure to a hazard, for example:
  • Develop a code of conduct so that everyone is aware of appropriate work behaviours.
  • Clarify team rules of communication or develop a team charter.
  • Provide managers with the knowledge and skills to identify and manage conflict and respond to inappropriate behaviour, including accessing third-party professional support when required.

You may need to use a combination of these control measures to meet your responsibilities under WHS laws. Refer to the Managing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work Code of Practice 2022 for more information.

Risk management should be an ongoing process in your business, and you should review your control measures regularly. Don’t wait until something goes wrong.

In some situations, WHS legislation requires you to review controls.

These are:

• when the control measure is not effective in controlling the risk
• before a change that might give rise to a new risk
• when you identify a new hazard or risk
• when consultation with workers indicates a review is needed
• when the dynamic and complexity of your business changes, for a new supervisor or worker
• after a health and safety representative requests a review.

A review of risk control measures should be undertaken after incidents or complaints involving poor workplace relationships and interpersonal conflict.

A review of risk control measures can include an examination of:

• the physical work environment
• work systems and procedures
• worker training and information
• the consultation processes in your place of work.