CIPD launches tool to handle difficult people

October 2007

High performance depends on effective relationships with colleagues and customers and the ability of individuals and teams to cope with difficult and stressful situations. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have published a new toolkit Handling Difficult People and Difficult Situations providing trainers and HR professionals with a resource to train employees to cope with difficult people and difficult situations at work.

It contains useful training tools that can be tailored to a wide range of learning needs such as customer service, combating stress in the workplace, communication skills, influencing skills, assertiveness, leadership and management skills, and interpersonal skills.

Greg Whitear co author of the tool says: "Difficult people may well have personal issues that make them difficult and some people may be difficult because of the way we interact with them. On the other hand people may seem difficult because their personality clashes with our own. But they are only difficult in our eyes and not necessarily in the eyes of others.

"This tool provides behavioural techniques that can be applied to a number of real life situations such as getting the boss to listen to you, difficult appraisals and being criticised by your colleagues. It will enable individuals to handle difficult people and situations effectively and productively."

The toolkit uses the STARS philosophy. To ensure employees work together well everyone needs to be willing to: