By BarBusinessOwner.com
Employee conflicts mean bad news for your bar. Not only do they hurt the employees involved and limit their ability to do their jobs well, they affect other staff members and lower morale and the positive work environment that you work so hard to create.
Stress and drama from employee disputes can affect customer service. When employees aren't working together, it chips away at the customer experience and this can't be tolerated.
Bringing personal feelings into the bar and letting it affect customers is just plain unprofessional. And if something happens to make a conflict become obvious to customers, they may feel uncomfortable or even fearful thus making them want to avoid your bar in the future.
Why Do Bar Employee Conflicts Happen?
Why is a bar a hot-bed for employee conflict? Well, there are a few different reasons and most of them simply have to do with the type of work that is done in a bar and how a bar is operated.
Unfortunately these things are just inherent to bars so as long as your bar is a bar, these kinds of situations can occur.
A bar is a busy environment that can be stressful at times and lead to friction among staff.
Employees are often young and may not have the experience to know the best way to deal with others.
Working in a bar is people-oriented and any time you put a bunch of people together for a period of time, there will be personalities that do not go well together.
Just as employees can help each other out during work, they can also make it more difficult for each other, which can cause tension.
Being a good worker and being a good co-worker isn't necessarily the same thing. Just because an employee is a good worker doesn't mean that they will always get along with other staff members.
Often bar employees will form relationships outside of work - becoming friends or dating - and these relationships can add drama to the workplace.
How to Resolve Employee Disputes
The best place to resolve employee disputes is in an office or other private area with the employees present and away from customers or additional staff members hearing.
Seeing an employee getting reprimanded makes customers just as uncomfortable as seeing employees bickering, so you should never try to resolve employee disputes on the floor - it will make your bar look even more unprofessional.
If employees are showing tension or arguing in front of customers, simply ask them to step into your office and resolve the conflict there.
You'll also want to do this to keep the situation from becoming gossip or otherwise affecting the rest of your employees. It only takes one employee to hear the conversation and then spread the details around to everyone, and gossip can have a negative effect on your ability to resolve the situation for good.
Work on a solution together
Have both employees take you through the events that perpetuated the dispute and listen to the entire story before you make a judgment or decide on a course of action. Be sure to take both sides of the story into account. Playing favorites or listening to only one side of the story will not help resolve the issue.
Let the employees know that their current behavior is unacceptable, tell them why it is unacceptable and explain to them that the behavior cannot go on. Depending on the severity of the situation, decide if further action needs to be taken against any of the employees (such as a harassment report.)
Try to come up with a solution to the problem
Refer to the job description and/or employee handbook if needed. It should be clear where the employees stepped out of line. Do not let the employees take control of the situation. The supervisor, manager or owner (whoever is conducting the meeting) should decide the best course of action.
Once you're in a private area, bring all employees who are directly involved in the conflict (usually just two people) together. It may seem like a better idea to talk to the employees separately, but this also makes it more difficult to get the true version of events and can make you susceptible to persuasion from employees, so talk to the employees together.
Emphasize what you want from the resolution - i.e. employees working better together, no tension in front of customers - and make it clear to employees that their current behavior will not be tolerated and the situation must be resolved.
Make sure employees understand the consequences of continuing the conflict - if they cannot work together and the dispute goes on, then they could both be fired or face other disciplinary action (such as a suspension.)
End the meeting by going over the solution to the problem again and if you feel it's necessary, remind employees what behaviors must not be repeated. Finish on a positive note by stating the improvements you want to see in the employee's behavior moving forward.
You'll probably realize it just by being around the employees, but after about a week, follow up with each of them individually to make sure the problem has been resolved. If you notice that the employee has made a true effort to make things better, recognize their effort and give them praise.
