When Two Employees Cannot Stand Each Other — Without Changing Your Culture

This is the call owners dread. Two employees cannot stand each other. One believes a manager wants them gone. The manager believes the employee wants to be impossible. You cannot tell whose story is true from the hallway. If you guess, you will be wrong in a way that lasts.

Do not start by changing the company

A lot of HR arrives with a new culture. That is the fear family businesses have, and it is fair. The work is the opposite: learn how this company has successfully operated, then see where these two people are misaligned with the work, the roles, or each other. Align people to the business. Do not steer the business into a new personality.

A simple sequence that respects everyone

• Hear the owner’s picture first, casually and fully
• Speak with each person alone — not only about each other, about the work, the process, the role
• Look for gaps: unclear duties, two bosses, a rule nobody wrote down
• Write what you heard without dressing anyone down in the report
• Offer a path that can be tried, and be honest if the fit may not hold

When someone says “retaliation”

Take the word seriously. It can be a real fear. It can also be a strategy. You will not know until you have facts. Document timing. Separate performance from personality. Do not punish someone for raising a concern. Do not freeze the business into doing nothing forever.

Sometimes the kindest outcome for the company is that a person leaves. Sometimes the kindest outcome is a repaired working relationship. You only earn the right to say which after you have listened.