Tag: addressing

  • Resources for Addressing Workplace Conflict

    Resources for Addressing Workplace Conflict

    by Christy Williams | March 5, 2025

    As your institution processes its response to recent executive orders and the reactions of employees and students across campus, increasing workplace tensions may make it more challenging for your HR team to maintain a positive and collaborative environment.

    These challenges are not novel for higher ed HR, but they can be used as a springboard to examine the approaches you’ve used in the past and reimagine how they should — or could — evolve now. So, how can we support each other in our collective need for respectful discourse and civil disagreement? Here are some valuable insights and resources to help you along the way.

    Develop Conflict-Savvy Leaders

    Conflict is an inevitable part of any workplace, and higher ed institutions are no exception. Erica Hines, chief human resources and personnel success officer at Community College of Aurora, recommends that rather than attempting to avoid conflict altogether, we recognize the importance of embracing conflict as an opportunity for growth. And creating a conflict-savvy culture like that begins at the top.

    It’s important for leaders not only to be prepared to address conflict, but also to model that behavior for everyone in your institution — administration, faculty, staff and students.

    As Hines details in her webinar, Developing Conflict-Savvy Leaders, when your institution’s leadership is prepared for conflict, a culture of trust can be built. When leaders are willing to face conflict head-on and focus on finding win-win solutions, fewer issues escalate.

    Train for Conflict Resolution

    It’s not enough, however, for only administration to be conflict-savvy and model civil conversations. Managers and employees should be provided with strategies for de-escalating workplace tensions.

    Tulane University’s conflict resolution program supports its employees with a variety of conflict resolution services, including consultations to learn about their program, coaching to help employees with specific challenges, mediation to help employees through a disagreement, and facilitated conversations led by a professionally trained specialist. Tulane’s HR team believes that “conflict can be a tool for positive change when employees have the resources to build upon their conflict competence.”

    Establish Clear Norms Around Communication and Feedback

    In the Developing Conflict-Savvy Leaders webinar, Erica Hines stresses that employees at all levels need to understand how to give and receive input in a constructive way. One norm she suggests is to use “I” or “my” when offering feedback. For example, “Here’s what I noticed…” or “Here’s what I felt when…” A norm you might establish for receiving feedback could focus on active listening, summarizing what you just heard, and then asking how you can reach a win-win solution. For example, “What would you prefer I do in that situation?” Or “What ideas do you have for managing this situation in the future?”

    When teams have a shared understanding of how to navigate difficult conversations, they can address issues proactively instead of letting them escalate. By integrating these practices into daily interactions, you can cultivate an environment where open dialogue and mutual respect thrive.

    Prioritize Professionalism and Civility

    Creating a culture of professionalism is the foundation of a kinder campus. As Jennifer Parker, assistant director of HR operations at the Colorado Community College System, highlights in her article, A Kinder Campus, professionalism is more than just following policies. Professionalism is how faculty, staff and administrators treat one another daily. Respect, integrity and ethical conduct should guide every interaction, ensuring that civility remains a cornerstone of your culture.

    Beyond professionalism, Parker emphasized the role of active listening and empathy in conflict resolution. When employees take the time to truly listen and seek to understand different perspectives, they’re not just resolving disputes — they’re “building bridges of trust.” Demonstrating empathy during difficult conversations helps diffuse tension and encourages constructive dialogue. When you prioritize professionalism, you create an environment where trust and collaboration flourish.

    From Conflict to Meaningful Conversations

    Addressing workplace conflict isn’t just about resolving disputes — it’s about creating an environment where open dialogue is encouraged, and employees feel heard and supported. Because of this, conflict resolution training shouldn’t be a one-time event, but an ongoing practice woven into workplace culture. While difficult conversations may never be easy, the more everyone practices, the more natural those conversations become. By setting clear expectations, proactively guiding discussions, and championing a culture of respect, you can help transform workplace tensions into opportunities for growth and collaboration.

    Related CUPA-HR Resources

    Developing Conflict-Savvy Leaders — This CUPA-HR webinar explores how HR can help leaders address conflict head-on, thus minimizing the need for HR intervention down the line.

    Ushering in the New Wave of Conflict Resolution: Tulane University’s Restorative Approach — This article details the launch of Tulane University’s conflict-resolution program.

    A Kinder Campus: Building an AI-Powered, Repeatable and Fun Civility Training Program — This magazine article outlines how the Colorado Community College System created a campaign to address incivility on their campuses.

    Civility in the Workplace Toolkit — This HR toolkit provides practical strategies for fostering respectful communications and managing workplace conflicts.

    Managing Difficult Conversations Toolkit — This HR toolkit provides basic strategies that can be widely used as starting points for many challenging conversations.

    Next Steps: A Practical Guide for Ensuring Access and Opportunity for All Employees — This CUPA-HR blog post offers considerations for ensuring that you are providing equal access and opportunity for all.

    Resilience and Psychological Safety: Navigating Uncertainty — This blog post explores how resilience and psychological safety can be particularly useful in times of change and uncertainty.



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  • Collaboration is key when it comes to addressing harassment and sexual misconduct

    Collaboration is key when it comes to addressing harassment and sexual misconduct

    In all of the noise about the OfS’s new regulation on harassment and sexual misconduct there’s one area where the silence is notable and disappointing – sector collaboration.

    Back in 2022, the independent evaluation of the OfS statement of expectations on harassment and sexual misconduct made a clear recommendation that OfS and DfE “foster more effective partnership working“ both between HE providers and with those external to the sector. Now, having published details of the new condition E6 and the accompanying guidance, this seems to have been largely forgotten.

    There’s a nod to the potential benefit of collaboration in OfS’s analysis of consultation responses, but it only goes as far as to say that providers “may wish to identify collective steps” – with little explanation of what this could look like and no intention or commitment to proactively support this.

    This feels like a significant oversight, and one that is disappointing to say the least. It’s become clear from our work with IHE members that collaboration needs to be front and centre if we have any hope as a sector of delivering in this area. Without it, some providers – especially smaller ones – will not be able to meet the new requirements, creating risk and failing to achieve the consistency of practice and experience that students expect. This feels even more true given the current context of widespread financial insecurity. Any new regulation ought to be presenting mechanisms and incentives to collaborate – and reduce costs in doing so.

    Working together for a stronger sector – or only sometimes?

    The silence around collaboration is also surprising, given that in other spheres it is seen to be – and in many cases is – the solution to institutions meeting regulatory requirements and student expectations. John Blake’s latest speech on a regional approach to access and participation is just one example of this. There is implicit recognition that in this era of “diminishing resources”, working together is the solution. There’s also the recognition that partnership working needs funding – more on that later.

    It’s also surprising given that OfS has made clear that both providers in any academic partnership are responsible for compliance with the new condition, including where there’s a franchise arrangement. This seems like an open door for collaborative approaches, given that over half the providers on the register do not have their own degree awarding powers. However, as usual, it is unclear what this means in practice. There is no reference in the regulation to how the OfS would view any collaborative efforts, or examples of what this might look like in practice.

    Academic partnerships make logical collaborators

    IHE’s recent project on academic partnerships demonstrates the potential of such arrangements for collaboration that benefits both providers and their students. Our research found a number of innovative models where awarding institutions facilitated collaboration with and between their academic partners in areas including shared learning opportunities and use of shared platforms.

    There’s a clear opportunity here when it comes to staff training. All institutions need to have staff who are “appropriately trained”. Training in areas such as receiving disclosures and conducting investigations benefits from group delivery – where staff can learn from each other. A small provider might only have one or two staff who require it, meaning they are unlikely to draw much benefit from this. It would also make such training prohibitively expensive. It’s likely to need to be delivered by an external organisation (to ensure the “credible and demonstrable expertise” required) and such solutions aren’t scaled to an institution with just a handful of relevant staff. Awarding institutions sharing such group training would solve this – and also benefit shared processes in that staff across both institutions have the same level of knowledge and competence.

    A further benefit of shared training would be that partners could share staff when investigations need greater independence than a small provider can offer. This could be staff from the awarding partner, or another academic partner. This would effectively bring together useful knowledge of institutional context, policies and processes with the necessary external objectivity to run a credible investigation.

    Another opportunity for collaboration is in shared online reporting tools. These can be an effective way of encouraging disclosure, but such systems are often not scaled for small institutions. As well as being more cost-effective, sharing these could lead to greater confidence of students reporting in the independence of tool and the process that follows.

    Think local – for everyone’s sake!

    Regional or local collaboration is the other area with the potential to benefit students, providers, and other services supporting those who experience harassment or sexual misconduct.

    Local or regional collaboration on reporting and investigation can support disclosure by creating more independence in the system. The independent evaluation spoke specifically of this, recommending the facilitation of

    formal or informal shared services, such as regional support networks, and in particular regional investigation units or hubs.

    And it would enable more effective partnerships with external support services. Rather than every provider trying to establish a partnership with a local service (putting a greater burden on groups who are often charities or not-for-profits), group collaborations could streamline this. This needs to include all types of provider, including small providers and FE colleges delivering HE. This would be more efficient, reduce unhelpful competition for the limited resource of the service, and ensure that all students have access to these support services irrespective of their place of study.

    Where there aren’t local services, providers could pool resource and expertise to develop and deliver these. This would reduce competition for specialist staff in the same geographic location, and again ensure parity of support for students across providers.

    It’s important that such collaborations involve all parts of the sector, including small providers – with the burden of their participation reflective of their smaller size. This is vital to ensure that collaborative models are cost effective for everyone.

    Getting it right on student engagement

    Collaborative approaches are also going to be critical to make sure we get it right on student engagement. The OfS expectation is clear that providers work with students and their representatives to develop policies and procedures. But what happens when an institution doesn’t have an SU, or a formal representative structure, or the necessary experience in student engagement to do this? There’s a risk that it won’t be done properly or be done at all.

    We need to consider how we facilitate students to support each other to engage in co-production. This could include sharing staff or exploring the development of local student union services that bring in smaller providers or FE colleges without the means to partner with students in the way that is needed.

    Making it happen

    The sort of collaboration outlined above will need more than just the goodwill of institutions to make it happen. It needs regulatory backing, with more explicit recognition of the value of these approaches and guidance on what this might look like in practice. We also need to recognise that it’s costly.

    Catalyst funding, like that provided back in 2019, would represent far better value to the sector than asking individual providers to fund collaboration. The risk is that without it, the burden of developing a system that works for all students at all providers will be left to the smallest institutions who need these collaborative options the most. Funding would also boost evaluation and resource sharing across the sector. It could consider the benefits of collaborative approaches between awarding and teaching institutions as well as regional structures which ensure a greater parity of support across providers large and small.

    Somewhere on this path to regulation we lost the perspective that harassment and sexual misconduct is a societal issue. What we do now to educate, prevent harm to and support students will have a lasting impact on the future as students become employees, employers, parents and educators themselves. It is not a task to be shouldered alone.

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