Angela pretty much says it all, although there's other interesting suggestions. All I can add is that when it comes to deciding if an employee is "snitching" about a real issue or something they should look past, you need to look at whether it interferes with other people's jobs or creates an uncomfortable/unpleasant work environment. If so you probably want to do something about it; if it doesn't pass that test the person may be complaining about nothing.
There can always be bigger issues though. If, say, a phone going off really is preventing a person from doing their job maybe you aren't giving them an environment where they can pay attention as much as they need to.
Ultimately this is a specific example of the general conflict resolution issue - how you react to it can encourage or discourage certain behaviour. You need to deal with it in a way that's fair to both people and doesn't aggravate the situation. If you find yourself doing it too much you might want to look at team-building, so you can direct your employees' attentions towards cooperation and the shared objective rather than fighting each other to get ahead or because they're just bored. A lot of people more qualified than me have written about these subjects.
|