Two employees are in ongoing conflict — visible tension, short exchanges, complaints to you, or active avoidance. It's affecting the team environment, slowing collaboration, and putting you in the middle. Neither of them is going to resolve it without you stepping in.
Mediating between two adults feels messy. Managers worry about appearing to take sides, making things worse by surfacing the issue formally, or getting dragged into a he-said-she-said spiral they can't resolve. So they wait — hoping it blows over. It rarely does. Left unaddressed, interpersonal conflict becomes a retention problem, a morale problem, or eventually an HR problem.
Speak to each person separately first. You want to understand what they each experienced without either person performing for an audience. Keep these conversations factual — ask what happened, not who's wrong. Don't share what one person said with the other. And don't commit to any resolution until you've heard both sides.
What you're listening for: Is this a personality clash, a specific incident, a communication breakdown, or something more serious (harassment, discrimination, retaliation)? If it's the latter, stop and involve HR immediately.
"You two just need to work this out — you're both adults." — This abdicates the manager's role entirely. Both employees will interpret it as you not taking the situation seriously. The conflict doesn't get resolved; it just goes underground.
"I've noticed some tension between you and [Name] and I want to address it directly. I'm not here to figure out who's right — I'm here because it's affecting the work and that's my job to fix. Tell me what's been happening from your side."
"I've talked to both of you individually. I'm not going to relitigate what happened — I want to focus on what working together looks like from here. The baseline I need from both of you is [specific behavior — direct communication, no side conversations, professional tone in meetings]. That's not a request. What questions do you have about that expectation?"
- Always speak to each person separately before bringing them together — joint conversations without prep usually backfire.
- Name what you observed, not what you heard. "I've noticed" carries more weight than "people have told me."
- You are not a referee. You're not there to determine fault. You own the outcome — professional behavior at work — not the relationship.
- Be specific about what professional behavior looks like going forward. Vague asks ("just get along") don't stick.
- If either person discloses harassment, discrimination, or retaliation during these conversations — stop, document, and contact HR immediately. This changes the entire situation.
- Follow up with both employees individually a week later to check whether the behavior has changed.
Conflict situations are highly specific — who's involved, what happened, how long it's been going on. Use the Manager Scripts generator to get a script tailored to your situation. Free, no signup, ready in seconds.
Generate My Script