Although most employees are mature, professional adults, conflict can still arise during a compliance training. Sometimes putting large groups in a training can intensify office interpersonal conflict, and other times a corporate training energizes staff and leads to boisterous or confrontational behavior. Whatever the reason for the conflict, here are our tips for addressing conflict during compliance training:
Conflict Situation #1: employee argues with trainer
Sometimes employees challenge the facilitator during training sessions. When an employee challenges your experience or information, practice good boundaries and stay calm. Restate your credentials or data in a confident manner. Getting anxious or uncertain will only amplify the employee.
If an employee tells you they don’t like a training, let them know that you value you their feedback but need to proceed with the training to stay on time. Ask the employee to fill out their feedback form or discuss their needs with you after the training.
Conflict Situation #2: employees have conflict among themselves
Sometimes teams will bring their conflicts with each other, or other teams at the training, into the training. To help prevent this kind of conflict, plan a variety of activities where employees work and sit with various other participants, both in their team and other groups. If conflict starts, politely but firmly ask participants to address the situation together after the training. If conflict continues to escalate, have your secondary team member take the group aside privately and deescalate the situation, and consider changing employees’ seats in the middle of the training.