Maintaining a diverse workforce is important to broaden your workers’ perspectives and allow your company to expand in different ways. But people of different races and cultures bring with them different priorities and different understandings about how the world works. It is important for business owners and leaders to commit to fair conflict resolution when race is a factor, ensuring that everyone at the table is treated with respect and given a voice.
Racial and Cultural Differences Can Reduce Trust in Conflict Resolution
There are multiple empirical studies that show that racial and cultural differences come into play in negotiations. When two (or more) people share the same race, they bargain more cooperatively than if they are of different races. Intercultural coworkers may try to maintain appearances or postures in the face of someone who is different than they are. That posturing can interfere with the parties’ ability to cooperate to resolve conflict.
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It is important to remember that minority workers face regularly face racism in the world around them. Even if a particular person does not intend offense, a black or brown worker’s ability to interact with their white team member will be influenced by a pattern of oppression, institutionalized racism, and disadvantage that minority workers have experienced throughout their lives. This can negatively affect workers’ ability to come to consensus with their counterparts of other races, making conflict resolution more difficult even when everyone has the best of intentions.
To address this mistrust, conflict resolution facilitators should help the parties recognize, address, and set aside the barriers erected due to racial or cultural differences. The first step to any fair conflict resolution is to help the interested parties come to trust the facilitator, and the process to reach a result that is not motivated by racism or bigotry. This may take working with each employee separately to address any preconceptions created by the facilitator’s own race and the employee’s history in dealing with people like them.
Fair Conflict Resolution Isn’t Always Color-Blind
Traditional conflict resolution strategies apply a universalistic or color-blind approach to conflict, treating everyone based on the assumptions of the leaders who formed the policies – most often white middle-class men. Because everyone operates under their own biases and assumptions, these structures tend to ignore the unique priorities, histories, and characteristics at play among a diverse workforce.
Remember that during the conflict resolution process, employees, supervisors, and facilitators come together to identify the underlying cause of the dispute and then reach a settlement that addresses everyone’s concerns. For a conflict resolution policy to be fair, it needs to accommodate workers’ different cultural values and characteristics. Facilitators must be careful not to operate based on stereotypes and assumptions about workers’ racial, gender, or cultural background. Rather than relying on presumed social norms, or stereotyped assumptions, facilitators should identify and tailor conflict resolution sessions to priorities of the team members at the table.
One way to think about this is in terms of accommodation. In another context – employees with disabilities – employers have long been encouraged (and even legally required) to provide workers with reasonable accommodation to address their different needs and abilities. This may take the form of allowing the employee to sit while working at the cash register or take breaks to administer medication. Nothing in the employee’s request for reasonable accommodation makes them worse at their job but may come at the work from a different perspective or need different supports to get things done according to company standards. By analogy, the same can be said for workers of different races. Their personal histories, experiences, and values may cause them to come at the work differently than their supervisors or coworkers. But by listening to them and accommodating their needs, employers can come to a fair conflict resolution that respects who they are and where they come from, as well as the company’s priorities.
It isn’t always easy to maintain fair conflict resolution strategies when race is a factor. To avoid workplace harassment complaints and improve cooperation among a diverse workforce, it is wise to make use of an objective facilitator who will listen to the employees, ensure they feel heard, and help them come to a consensus to move forward. Taking the time to do this will promote equality and fairness and make sure minority workers are treated with respect so they can meaningfully contribute to the company.
David Stanislaw is an organizational development specialist with over 30 years’ experience helping employees and companies resolve workplace disputes. Through facilitated conflict resolution, David helps small and medium-sized businesses prepare for and respond to employee complaints and reduce conflict in their workplaces. Contact us to meet with David to move toward conflict resolution today.
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