I’m writing a magazine piece at the moment about the cost of Conflict in the workplace and boning up on recent research. It’s always tricky to come up with a financial cost of business and human suffering and one needs to be a bit careful about the agendas of those who publish such research.

Having said that the figures are a bit shocking

The Health and Safety Executive has calculated that 13.4 million days were lost to stress-related causes in 2007/8. Bupa reckon poorly staff spend 150 million days away sick with flu each year. The CBI have calculated that 25 million days are lost through staff taking un-warrented sickness absence.

The figures for the days lost through conflict are even more shocking. In it’s report “”Fight, Flight or Face It” an OPP/CiPD report calculates that 370 million working days are lost to conflict and it’s management each year in the UK. Now it’s important to note that this figure relates to time spent dealing with conflict rather than the absence of staff. However they reckon that the time spent dealing with stress amounts to in excess on £24 billion….

so even if they are a bit, out it’s still a lot of money

Interestingly the report shows the clear benefits of training, not only on the ability to manage conflict successfully but on the perception of conflict as a catalyst for change

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