Organisations regularly fail to put enough time and emphasis into conflict resolution and effective communication principles. By not addressing these issues adequately, organisations waste time and money dealing with ad-hoc problems as they arise.

The conflict audit uses a collection of data to measure the cost of conflict to your organisation. We work with organisations to conduct a conflict audit based on diagnostics that help to provide an accurate figure. In most cases, this figure is huge. The impact usually means that the consequences become clearer. Consequences can be lost customers, staff turnover and a diversion of creative energy.

It is often useful to conduct these audits cross functionally.

The types of questions we would typically ask include:

• What is the organisation's cost of stress related sickness?
• How many employment tribunals has the organisation had in the last 12 months?
• How much time was spent preparing for tribunals?
• What issues are employee relations teams involved in solving?
• How much time do staff spend rumouring and gossiping?
• How are negative behaviours rewarded?

We then work with organisations to begin putting appropriate preventative solutions in place. Some of these solutions can include:

• Engaging the leadership team in the principles of conflict resolution and demonstrating the potential impact to the bottom line
• Defining clearer lines of accountability and updating organisation charts appropriately
• Rethinking in-house communication magazines
• Adopting an in-house mediation procedure
• Rewarding behaviours that support conflict prevention
• Training line managers and HR professionals