After years of facilitating workplace mediations across Australia, at Mediations Australia, we have noticed the patterns emerge that cannot be ignored. The same issues surface repeatedly, regardless of industry, organisation size, or location. What becomes abundantly clear is that most workplace conflict is not about “difficult personalities” or irreconcilable differences between employees. Rather, it stems from systemic organisational failures—capability gaps, unclear structures, and conversations that simply never happened when they should have.
Workplace conflict is estimated to cost Australia $10.1 billion each year, according to Safe Work Australia. Yet the root causes of these disputes remain remarkably consistent and, importantly, largely preventable. Understanding these endemic patterns is the first step toward building healthier, more productive workplaces—and knowing when and how to engage workplace mediation can transform destructive conflict into opportunities for genuine organisational improvement.
What People Are Really Struggling With
When employees and managers arrive at mediation, they often present surface-level complaints: a disagreement about workload, a perceived slight in a meeting, or frustration with a colleague’s communication style. But beneath these presenting issues lie deeper, more systemic concerns that have been allowed to fester, often for months or even years.
The interpersonal themes that consistently emerge in workplace disputes reveal a troubling pattern of organisational neglect—not malice, but oversight and under-investment in the human elements of work.
Poor Communication: The Foundation of Almost Every Dispute
If there is one thread that runs through virtually every workplace conflict, it is communication failure. Not simply “miscommunication” in the sense of mixed messages, but a more fundamental breakdown in how information flows—or fails to flow—within organisations.
Employees frequently describe feeling uninformed about decisions that directly affect their work. Managers express frustration that their teams “don’t listen” or “refuse to follow direction.” Yet when these situations are explored more deeply in mediation, it becomes apparent that the communication channels themselves are broken or never existed in the first place.
Consider how many workplace disputes begin with phrases like “nobody told me,” “I assumed they knew,” or “we’ve always done it this way.” These are not signs of personal failure but symptoms of organisations that have not invested in creating clear, consistent communication protocols.
Workplace conflict is often born of poor communication or letting emotion rule the decision-making process. When communication breaks down, employees fill the vacuum with assumptions, and assumptions breed misunderstanding.
The challenge is compounded in hybrid and remote working environments, where the casual conversations that once clarified expectations—the quick chat by the coffee machine, the informal debrief after a meeting—have largely disappeared. Without deliberate structures to replace these organic communication opportunities, misalignment becomes inevitable.
People Management Without Sufficient Training, Mentoring, or Feedback
One of the most concerning patterns in workplace disputes involves managers who have been promoted based on technical excellence but provided with little or no training in actually managing people. The assumption seems to be that good performers will naturally become good managers—an assumption that proves wrong time and again.
These managers often want to do well. They care about their teams and their organisations. But they have never been taught how to have difficult conversations, provide constructive feedback, set clear expectations, or navigate the inevitable tensions that arise when people work together under pressure.
The result is a cascade of problems. Performance issues go unaddressed because managers lack confidence in their ability to have the conversation. Small conflicts escalate because early intervention never occurs. Team members feel unsupported and undervalued because their manager simply does not know how to express appreciation or provide meaningful development opportunities.
The Saratoga Institute reports that 80 per cent of staff turnover is related to unsatisfactory relationships with the boss. This statistic alone should prompt organisations to reconsider their approach to management development.
In mediation, it is common to encounter managers who are genuinely surprised to learn how their actions—or inactions—have affected their team members. They never intended to create a hostile environment or make someone feel marginalised. They simply lacked the skills to manage effectively and were never given the support to develop them.
Grievance Processes Handled Badly
When workplace issues do escalate to formal complaints, the manner in which those grievances are handled often determines whether conflict is resolved or entrenched. Unfortunately, many organisations handle grievance processes poorly—not through malice, but through lack of training, inadequate policies, and insufficient empathy for all parties involved.
Employees who lodge complaints frequently report feeling re-traumatised by investigation processes that seem more focused on protecting the organisation than addressing their concerns. They describe lengthy delays with no communication, investigators who seem to have already formed conclusions, and outcomes that leave everyone dissatisfied.
Meanwhile, those accused of wrongdoing often experience their own form of trauma. Being subject to a workplace investigation, even when ultimately cleared, can be devastating to careers and wellbeing. When these processes lack procedural fairness or transparent communication, they create new wounds rather than healing existing ones.
The role of Fair Work Australia and workplace mediation in addressing these disputes has become increasingly significant. The Fair Work Commission received 44,075 lodgments in 2024–25, making a 10 per cent increase on the number from the previous corresponding year. This surge in formal complaints reflects, in part, the failure of internal processes to address concerns before they escalate to external bodies.
Mediation offers an alternative pathway—one that can address underlying issues rather than simply determining who was “right” and who was “wrong.” By engaging a neutral third party early in a dispute, organisations can often achieve outcomes that preserve working relationships and address systemic issues, rather than merely assigning blame.
Bullying: Perceived, Substantiated, and Allegations Of
Few workplace issues are as emotionally charged or potentially damaging as allegations of bullying. These situations require careful handling because the stakes are extraordinarily high for everyone involved.
Workplace bullying is repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or a group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety. This definition, while clear in theory, can be challenging to apply in practice. Not every unpleasant workplace interaction constitutes bullying, yet behaviour that falls short of the legal definition can still cause genuine harm.
The national average workplace bullying rate was 9.6 per cent. Nearly one in 10 people report that they have been bullied at work using strict definitions. This represents a sizeable proportion of the Australian workforce experiencing behaviour that creates risk to their health and safety.
What complicates these situations further is the distinction between bullying that is substantiated through investigation, behaviour that is perceived as bullying but may not meet the technical definition, and allegations of bullying that prove unfounded. Each scenario requires different responses, yet all cause significant distress to those involved.
Perceived bullying—situations where an employee genuinely feels bullied even when behaviour may not meet the formal definition—deserves particular attention. These feelings do not emerge from nowhere. They typically arise from cumulative experiences of feeling disrespected, undervalued, or unfairly treated. Whether or not the behaviour technically constitutes bullying, the workplace relationship has clearly broken down and requires attention.
Mental health conditions now account for 9% of all serious workers’ compensation claims, a 36.9% increase since 2017-18. The psychological toll of workplace conflict, including bullying and harassment, represents a significant and growing cost to Australian businesses and, more importantly, to the wellbeing of Australian workers.
Organisational Patterns Behind the Conflict
While interpersonal dynamics play a role in workplace disputes, focusing solely on the individuals involved misses the larger picture. Behind almost every workplace conflict lie organisational factors that created the conditions for conflict to emerge and flourish.
Understanding these systemic patterns is essential for organisations that want to address workplace conflict at its source rather than merely managing its symptoms.
Unclear Roles and Responsibilities
When employees are uncertain about the boundaries of their roles—where their responsibilities end and their colleagues’ begin—conflict becomes almost inevitable. This uncertainty creates competition for recognition, confusion about accountability, and resentment when work falls through the cracks or is duplicated.
The most common types of conflict in Australian workplaces are around employment conditions, supervisor/line manager decisions, personality conflicts, and uncivil behaviour. Many of these so-called “personality conflicts” are actually disputes about role boundaries dressed up in interpersonal terms.
Consider a common scenario: two employees both believe they are responsible for a particular project outcome. When the project succeeds, both claim credit. When it fails, both blame the other. What appears to be a personality clash is actually a failure of organisational design—no one clearly defined who was responsible for what.
Clear job descriptions, documented reporting lines, and explicit communication about decision-making authority can prevent countless disputes. Yet many organisations treat these administrative tasks as low priorities, leaving employees to navigate ambiguous role boundaries on their own.
Under-Resourcing: Doing More with Less
Australian workplaces have experienced decades of efficiency drives, restructuring, and “doing more with less.” While these initiatives may improve short-term financial performance, they often create conditions that make workplace conflict inevitable.
When teams are chronically under-resourced, employees compete for limited time, budget, and support. Workloads become unmanageable, leading to stress, mistakes, and resentment toward colleagues who may be perceived as not pulling their weight. Quality suffers, creating further pressure and frustration.
Burnout costs Australian businesses an estimated $39 billion each year in lost productivity, absenteeism and turnover. This figure represents not just financial loss but also the human cost of workplaces that demand more than they sustainably provide.
In mediation, it is common to encounter employees who have been working unsustainable hours for extended periods, trying to meet expectations that simply cannot be met with available resources. When these employees finally reach breaking point—whether through conflict with colleagues, formal complaints, or simply walking away—the organisation loses not just that individual but also the institutional knowledge and relationships they had built.
Addressing under-resourcing requires honest conversations about organisational capacity. What can realistically be achieved with available resources? What trade-offs are acceptable? What additional investment is needed? These conversations are often uncomfortable, but they are essential for preventing the conflicts that arise when expectations exceed capacity.
Promotions Without Necessary Training and Support
The pattern of promoting high performers into management roles without adequate preparation has already been mentioned, but it warrants deeper exploration as a systemic issue.
Recent research suggests that between 30–50 per cent of a typical manager’s time is spent managing workplace conflict. If managers spend up to half their time managing conflict, yet receive little or no training in conflict resolution, the mismatch is obvious and problematic.
Workplace conflict costs Australian businesses between $6 billion and $12 billion annually, with managers spending roughly 30% of their time resolving disputes. This represents an enormous investment of time and energy—investment that could be significantly reduced with better upfront training and ongoing support.
The skills required for effective people management are learnable. Communication, feedback, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence—these are not innate talents that some possess and others lack. They are capabilities that can be developed through training, coaching, and practice. Yet many organisations treat management development as an afterthought, if they address it at all.
Organisations that invest in developing their managers’ people skills see returns in reduced conflict, improved retention, and higher engagement. More importantly, they create workplaces where people can thrive rather than merely survive.
The Common Thread: Poor Communication (Again)
It bears repeating: poor communication underlies virtually every organisational pattern that contributes to workplace conflict. Roles are unclear because no one communicated expectations clearly. Resources are insufficient because no one communicated constraints honestly. Managers struggle because no one communicated how to lead effectively.
The inability for managers to effectively navigate conflict and bring about positive resolution is costing them nearly one full day of productivity per month, or two and a half weeks per year.
Communication is not just about transmitting information. It is about creating shared understanding, building trust, and enabling people to work together effectively. When communication fails, everything else follows.
How Mediation Helps
Given these endemic patterns, what role can mediation play in addressing workplace conflict? The answer lies in mediation’s unique ability to address not just the presenting dispute but also the underlying systemic issues that created it.
A Faster, More Cost-Effective Path to Resolution
The continuing rate of growth in the Commission’s workload is unsustainable within the Commission’s current operational, performance and funding structures, according to Fair Work Commission President Justice Adam Hatcher. This observation highlights the limitations of formal legal processes in addressing the volume of workplace disputes that Australian organisations generate.
Mediation offers a faster alternative. While formal complaints, investigations, and legal proceedings can take months or even years to resolve, workplace mediation typically achieves outcomes in days or weeks. This speed benefits everyone involved—employees can move forward rather than remaining stuck in conflict, and organisations can restore productive working relationships more quickly.
The cost savings are equally significant. Legal representation, investigation fees, management time, and the hidden costs of ongoing conflict all add up rapidly. Mediation, by contrast, represents a relatively modest investment that often pays for itself many times over through avoided costs and restored productivity.
Addressing Root Causes, Not Just Symptoms
Perhaps mediation’s greatest value lies in its ability to explore and address the underlying causes of conflict rather than merely determining who was at fault. A skilled mediator creates space for parties to understand each other’s perspectives, identify what went wrong, and develop solutions that prevent similar issues from arising in future.
This approach contrasts sharply with adversarial processes that focus on establishing blame. When a formal investigation determines that bullying did or did not occur, for example, it answers a narrow legal question but does nothing to repair the damaged relationship or address the organisational factors that contributed to the situation.
Mediation, by contrast, can explore questions like: What systemic issues created the conditions for this conflict? What changes would prevent similar situations? How can the working relationship be restored? These questions lead to solutions that benefit not just the immediate parties but the broader organisation.
Preserving Relationships and Organisational Culture
Workplace disputes rarely occur between strangers. They involve colleagues who must continue working together, managers and team members whose relationships shape daily working life, and individuals whose connections extend throughout the organisation.
Adversarial processes often destroy these relationships irreparably. Even when one party “wins,” both parties typically lose—the workplace trust that enables effective collaboration is broken, often beyond repair.
Mediation takes a different approach. By facilitating direct communication, encouraging empathy, and focusing on future-oriented solutions, mediation can sometimes strengthen relationships that appeared irretrievably damaged. Even when full reconciliation is not possible, mediation can establish working protocols that allow parties to collaborate professionally even if personal warmth has been lost.
Empowering Parties to Create Their Own Solutions
In court proceedings and formal investigations, outcomes are imposed by external decision-makers. Parties have limited control over the result and may feel that the outcome does not adequately address their needs or concerns.
Mediation returns control to the parties themselves. With the mediator’s assistance, participants develop their own solutions—agreements that reflect their priorities, address their concerns, and work within their particular organisational context. Research consistently shows that agreements reached through mediation have higher compliance rates than imposed decisions, precisely because the parties themselves created them.
Building Organisational Capacity for Future Conflicts
Beyond resolving immediate disputes, mediation can help organisations build their capacity to handle future conflicts more effectively. Through the mediation process, participants often develop improved communication skills, greater empathy for different perspectives, and better understanding of conflict dynamics.
Some organisations engage mediators not just to resolve specific disputes but to train managers and HR professionals in mediation skills. This investment creates internal capacity for early intervention, potentially preventing small disagreements from escalating into major conflicts.
Moving Forward: Breaking the Cycle
The endemic nature of workplace conflict in Australian organisations need not be permanent. By understanding the systemic patterns that create conflict—poor communication, inadequate management development, unclear roles, under-resourcing, and mishandled grievance processes—organisations can take proactive steps to address these root causes.
For conflicts that do arise, early engagement with professional mediation services offers a pathway to resolution that is faster, less expensive, and more likely to preserve productive working relationships than formal legal processes.
Most importantly, organisations must recognise that workplace conflict is not primarily about “difficult personalities” or individual failings. It is about systems, structures, and cultures that either support effective collaboration or undermine it. By investing in communication, developing managers, clarifying roles, resourcing adequately, and handling grievances with care, organisations can create environments where conflict is addressed constructively—and where the most damaging disputes never arise at all.
If your organisation is experiencing workplace conflict, or if you want to prevent disputes before they escalate, Mediations Australia can help. Our experienced workplace mediators understand the systemic patterns that create conflict and can guide your organisation toward lasting resolution. Contact us today to discuss how mediation can transform your workplace.
