The Guide from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development is designed to help equip line managers with the skills and confidence to intervene at an early stage to prevent disputes from escalating to the point where the formal disciplinary or grievance procedures has to be used or an employment tribunal application lodged. It is based on joint research by the CIPD and the HSE involving interviews with managers and employees in the healthcare, finance, education, and local and central government sectors. It highlights the management behaviours that were identified by the research as being most important to help line managers to prevent and manage conflict in the workplace.

The Guide was produced in response to a CIPD survey into managing conflict that showed organisations are increasingly relying on HR departments and external legal advice to manage the rising number of formal disciplinary and grievance cases.

The survey showed that too often managers shy away from tackling conflict in case they do or say something that might be held against them during any formal proceedings. This approach results in disputes escalating to the point where opinions are hardened, the situation becomes confrontational and it is very hard to resolve issues.

The Guide is available to download from CIPD. www.cipd.co.uk/guides.