by Carolin Gomulia
Most organisations have a grievance policy included in their HR policy. Most staff never read it unless a conflict erupts, and by then, the trust is often eroded and the relationships that make work possible are often beyond repair.
The question worth asking is what happens in all the space before a grievance process is initiated, when tension is present but unnamed, frustration simmers quietly under the surface and nobody quite knows how to address it. That is where most conflict actually lives. And that is the space most organisations are almost entirely unprepared for.
At The Workroom, we support organisations in developing conflict resolution toolkits and are often asked to advise on how to deal with tensions. The ones that do recognise that there is a significant gap between having a grievance procedure and having a team that knows how to engage with conflict early and constructively. Filling that gap requires a different kind of investment.
It requires, first of all, a willingness to reframe what conflict is. In creative processes, strategic discussions and diverse teams trying to solve difficult problems, tension can be productive. It surfaces assumptions, challenges conventions, and can sharpen thinking. The issue is often not the conflict itself but how we engage with it.
Conflict builds gradually and by the time it erupts, what looks like a sudden crisis is usually the result of a long, slow accumulation. The explosion is often the end of a process that started much earlier. In a world where disagreement increasingly happens behind a screen, the muscle for face-to-face conflict is weakening.
There is a well-developed body of practice for engaging with conflict, including plenty of tools, theories and practical guidance. For example, Non-Violent Communication, developed by Marshall Rosenberg, offers a framework for expressing needs and concerns without triggering defensiveness. It teaches people to separate what they observe from what they feel, and what they need from what they demand. Different dialogue practices create conditions for honest conversation across difference and hierarchy. What these approaches share is a commitment to engaging with the conflict and working through it, rather than around it. A toolkit gives teams a shared language, practical tools and a clearer sense of where to start and who to speak to.
But a toolkit alone is not enough. Building an organisation’s capacity to deal with conflict is like training a muscle. It requires regular practice, leaders who model the behaviour and a culture that treats difficult conversations as part of the work, not as a disruption to it.
Unresolved conflict doesn’t stay in the meeting room. It follows people home. In South Africa, toxic work environments contribute to one in four working South Africans being diagnosed with depression, and many affected employees choose to leave an organisation rather than report what is happening to them, often because they feel unheard and unsafe. Staff turnover, disengagement, and the slow erosion of trust are the real costs of conflict left unaddressed, and they are costs that rarely appear on any balance sheet. The financial implications are real, too: lost productivity from depression-related absenteeism is estimated to cost the South African economy R19 billion annually. But the more important question is not what conflict costs organisations. It is what it costs the people inside them — and whether we are willing to act before it gets to that point.
But there is another way to look at that space before the formal process kicks in. It is not only a gap, it is also an opportunity. An invitation to build something intentionally: a team culture where conflict capability is not just an organisational policy but a shared competency, rooted in personal growth and a willingness to keep learning. Organisations that approach it this way find that they are not only better at handling conflict but they are better at almost everything else too.
If your organisation is navigating conflict and you are not sure where to start, The Workroom is here to help.
