Conflict Resolution: Retail

Shift swaps that were agreed by text and then denied. The person who is always ten minutes late and always has a reason that is almost good enough. Two staff who will not cover for each other, so you end up covering for both.

Someone who was short with a customer in front of three colleagues, which is now two problems rather than one. A till discrepancy handled so clumsily that an honest person feels accused. Tips or commission split in a way that felt fine when you set it and does not now.

What makes these hard is not the substance. It is that you have to raise them mid-shift, quietly, and send the person straight back out to be pleasant to strangers.

You choose the situation and then you actually speak. The agent plays the employee, and it does not simply accept what you say. Open by telling somebody they have an attitude problem and you will get exactly what that earns you in real life.

You cannot practice this on your team. You can practice it here as many times as you like, and nobody remembers your first attempt.

You get a written read on how it went, scored on the parts that decide it: did you describe what happened rather than what kind of person they are, did you get to what they actually wanted, did you leave with something specific rather than a vague agreement to do better.

Vague agreements are why the same conversation happens again in a fortnight. The scoring is fairly unforgiving about them.

The free guide on managing employee conflict is the underlying method, and it costs nothing. Read it before you buy this and you will get more out of the practice.

Skip this if the real issue is that you are chronically understaffed. Short-staffed teams turn on each other, and that is not a communication failure. No amount of rehearsal fixes a rota with a hole in it.