I have two employees who can't get along and each is ratting on the other. What can help resolve this?

Question

I'm at a loss, we have a small 7 person office and these two guys are complaining constantly about the other. They must work together, but are refusing to. I need to get this under control, but have no clue where to start. What can you suggest?

Answer 1

I've run into this several times and I have a couple of suggestions.  The most effective that I've witnessed was seeing three women in our department at each other's throats for about a week.  Finally our department VP stepped in, frustrated to no end, and handed them $100 and told them to leave, go to the bar on the corner, spend as much as they would like but not to bother coming back until they had resolved their issues.  Worked amazingly well, in fact they are very close to each other now.

Another method is more or less forced collaboration.  I experienced this with one of my employees and another in our department not too long ago.  No matter what, they simply could not get along.  Because of this they refused to speak and would simply send emails back and forth to each other when they needed something from the other until they either got it or got so frustrated that they just gave up.  I told my employee that anything he wanted from her he had to get up and go ask her.  The woman's manager told her the same thing and after a rocky start they get along very well now and even joke openly with each other in the office.

There's no universal cure for what you're experiencing, it really depends on the personalities of your employees but get to know them as well as you can professionally and personally and the fix should come naturally.  Keep in mind though, not everyone can get along.  After a while you may just have to make a decision and someone, or both, have to go.

Answer 2

Call them into your office and tell them that since they can't get along and refuse to even try, that you are letting them both go.  This should shake them up enough to try and get along if the value their job, or they can get out and the office will be a happier place to work.  Finding employees is not hard, finding GOOD employees is hard.