What to do if an employee disagrees with their manager

Posted 6 years ago

All businesses have workers who don’t get along from time-to-time. Whether it’s due to differences in personality, lifestyle, opinion or something else entirely, sometimes employees just don’t mesh.

A disagreement can occur due to a performance review that the employee sees as unfair, a criticism from either party or even a conflict of interest.

When a disagreement occurs between a manager and an employee, areas of the company they work for will likely be negatively affected.

A disagreement between an employee and manager can cause:

A loss in productivity
Strained professional relationships
Admonitions, demotion, or termination (depending on the severity of the situation)

The solution

Unfortunately, there isn’t a definitive solution for resolving all disagreements involving a manager and employee.

Check out this clip from our Conflict Resolution Training course on a potential way of solving a conflict:

However, it’s important for management staff to keep a cool head when disagreeing with employees because organisations hold them to a higher standard and expect them to set an example to employees.

If the disagreement can’t be resolved between a manager and employee themselves, they should talk to human resources. This way the situation can be resolved without it affecting relationships with other workers.