Attracting and retaining qualified
staff is critical to any Catholic health
care organization’s mission, and the
Saint Francis human resources department
undertook an extensive effort to
change the medical center’s work environment.
They turned to employees
for input, and the replies were loud and
clear — “Help us deal with conflict.”
Elliott and his human resource
department created in-house mediation,
instituted substantial training
for effective conflict resolution and
worked with managers to address
bullying, which was not common but
caused special kinds of toxic conflict.
Looking back, Elliott said, the training
worked — the frequency of effective
conflict resolution increased and
mediations were highly successful.
But along the way, it became clear that
nearly half of all conflicts resulted
from differences between generations
on the job.3 For example, Baby Boomers
felt the younger generations
were slacking, Elliott
said, and younger workers
were impatient with the
technological incompetence
of their elders. Each generation
had its own vocabulary
and attitudes, leading to miscommunication.
(See related story on page 31.)