If your organization or team is involved in an ongoing conflict, it is crucial to calculate its true financial and marketplace costs. Beyond the obvious losses of productivity and morale, conflict can also steal the valuable time and attention of leadership, damage market reputation, and repulse top job seekers and clients.
A Case Study:
XYZ corporation has been dealing with a conflict within one of their work groups for the past three months. There are 10 people on the team and their salaries average $45,000/year, a very modest income by today’s standards. Their conflict is “medium” in severity- everyone on the team feels the conflict, but just half seem to be directly affected by it.
Trust between some team members has been lost. No one has quit or been fired just yet, but there are rumors that a few team members are beginning to put out their resumes. There are no legal issues or claims to date, but H.R. and leadership have been involved and aware of the problem for some time.
In unresolved conflict, tangible and intangible costs accrue monthly. We will consider both. Below is a breakdown of the standard costs associated with our modest conflict case study along with some explanation as to how we arrived at these numbers:
Cost #1: Wasted Time— based on the specific factors above, this cost is $9540/month. This accounts for the loss in which XYZ Company paid employees for time worked and got nothing.
