What to do when two staff will not work together any more

Aug 29
3 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

Introduction

Two people who used to get on now communicate only when necessary. Jobs are arranged so they do not overlap, other staff manage around it, and the owner has decided to leave it alone in the hope that it settles.

It will not settle. Unresolved conflict between two people in a small team consumes the attention of everybody in it, and the cost is paid in rota gymnastics, work done twice, information not passed on, and good people leaving for reasons they describe as something else. Tolerating it is a decision with a price. The price is simply paid by other people, which is why it stays invisible to the owner.

1. What to do when two staff will not work together begins with not ignoring it

The default is expensive.

Owners avoid this because it is uncomfortable and because they hope it resolves itself. In a team small enough that everybody is affected, months of avoidance cost considerably more than a difficult week would have.

2. Find out what actually happened

Separately and without an audience.

Speak to each of them alone, ask what the difficulty is, and listen without arbitrating. The stated issue is frequently not the original one, and there is usually a specific incident somewhere underneath it.

3. Distinguish a personality clash from something more serious

The judgement that changes everything.

If what is described amounts to bullying, harassment or discrimination, this is not a conflict to be mediated but a matter for a formal process with specific obligations. Establish which you are dealing with before choosing an approach.

4. Be clear about the standard you require

Not friendship.

They do not have to like each other and they do have to communicate professionally, share information, and be civil in front of customers and colleagues. Stating that expectation explicitly is frequently the whole intervention.

5. Bring them together once you have heard both

With structure, not to argue.

A short meeting with you present, an agreed purpose, and specific practical arrangements agreed at the end. Left to have it out on their own, they will repeat the disagreement rather than resolve it.

6. Agree practical arrangements rather than feelings

What can actually be committed to.

How handovers happen, who communicates what, what goes in writing, how customers are handled. People can commit to behaviour and cannot commit to attitude, so make the agreement about the first.

7. Consider mediation where it is entrenched

Cheaper than the alternatives.

An external mediator, or somebody neutral in the business, can achieve what an owner who both employs them cannot. For a long-standing conflict this is usually a better investment than another conversation.

8. Look at whether the structure is causing it

Frequently the actual cause.

Overlapping responsibilities, unclear authority, a shared resource, or one person effectively supervising the other without it being stated. A surprising proportion of personal conflicts are organisational problems with names attached.

9. Be prepared to make a decision

The point at which tolerance ends.

Where behaviour continues after clear expectations were set, it becomes a conduct matter with a proper process. Small businesses lose their best people by protecting the situation rather than resolving it.

Watch the effect on everybody else, because that is the real cost. Colleagues carrying messages, avoiding topics and managing two moods are doing unpaid work, and they are the ones most likely to leave over a conflict they were not part of.

Conclusion

Address it, because tolerating it costs more than the conversation does.

Speak to each person separately and listen before arbitrating, establish whether this is a clash or something that requires a formal process, state plainly the professional standard you require, bring them together with structure once you have heard both, agree practical arrangements about behaviour rather than feelings, consider mediation where it is entrenched, check whether overlapping roles or unclear authority are the underlying cause, be prepared to move to a conduct process, and watch what it is costing everybody else.