Are Your CNAs in the Know about Conflict Resolution?

It’s true: whenever people spend day after day together, conflict cannot be avoided completely. You may be nodding in agreement or you may be thinking that you’ve never had a dispute with anyone. However, conflict at work happens to everyone at some point in his or her career.

How do your nursing assistants handle workplace conflict? Do they ignore it and pretend it isn’t happening? Do they give in just to make it go away? Or, do they compromise respectfully with each other? At your next CNA inservice meeting, consider using this case study as a way to open a discussion about conflict management at your organization.

You Can’t Avoid Conflict

It’s true: whenever people spend day after day together, conflict cannot be avoided completely. You may be nodding in agreement or you may be thinking that you’ve never had a dispute with anyone. However, conflict at work happens to everyone at some point in his or her career.

A dispute between people usually begins with a disagreement. When you and a co-worker disagree, you have one opinion and your co-worker has another. Often, it doesn’t really matter to either of you what the other person thinks. You both go on with your lives, each sticking to your own opinion. Usually, disagreements consist of only words and they do not affect how people interact with each other.

For example, Tim and Connie, both CNAs, disagree one day at work about the proper way to give a bath to a bedridden client. They each express their opinion, saying that’s how they were taught in school. They end the discussion by saying, OK…you do it your way and I’ll do it mine. Tim and Connie disagree, but they respect each other’s opinion and have no trouble working together.

A full-blown conflict can begin with different opinions, but it grows into something much larger. Generally, it is not what people say, but how they act, that causes a disagreement to escalate into a conflict. In almost all conflicts, the problem is not the initial disagreement, but the way in which it is handled.

Let’s take another look at Tim and Connie’s situation. Imagine that instead of agreeing to disagree about bathing a client, they get into an ongoing struggle about who is right.

Tim starts telling other co-workers that Connie doesn’t know how to give a proper bath. Connie gives Tim hateful looks and refuses to work with him. They have entered into a contest of opposing forces. Having gone past the point of disagreement, Tim and Connie are in a full-blown conflict, which can start causing a disruption among their co-workers and eventually in job performance. Both Tim and Connie are creating a situation where neither will back down; each thinks that they would appear to be wrong by offering a truce. Unless their conflict is resolved, work will remain an unpleasant place for both of them!

Tim and Connie must put an end to their conflict, as it is hurting them both and is also causing a disruption to the rest of the workplace. Let’s see them fix the problem by going through five simple steps:

1. Connie realizes that they need to stop this fight and asks Tim politely if she can speak to him. Tim agrees and they sit in an empty meeting room together–away from their coworkers.
2. They take turns telling one another their points of view. One speaks while the other actively listens.
3. They see that the problem is they each have a strong personality, are competitive and like to be right. They agree that the problem was never the actual bathing technique but how they communicated.
4. They discuss the bathing method they each use and decide that both techniques are acceptable. However, Tim and Connie say they will continue using their own method. Neither person wins or loses.
5. Tim and Connie decide that, in the future, they will keep their own techniques to themselves. As long as the job is getting done, they can agree to disagree on the proper method. If either Tim or Connie uses a method that is not getting the job done, they will discuss it politely at that time. In the meantime, they agree that the conflict is over, and they both decide to apologize to their co-workers.

Would Your Nursing Assistants Like to Know More?

If you’d like to give your CNAs more information about workplace conflict, consider presenting an inservice on conflict resolution that includes:

• The common ways that people approach conflict.
• A step-by-step process for resolving workplace conflict.
• How gossip and workplace bullying promote conflict.
• How to respond to an unprofessional coworker.
• How to handle conflict with a supervisor or a client.

Don’t have time to put together your own inservice? Then, please check out our inservice called Conflict in the Workplace. It covers all of the above information…and more.

Happy Teaching!