Disagreements and bad feelings among employees should be tackled by managers, according to a new survey.
The head of employment law at the law firm Eversheds, Martin Warren, said his firm's study had found widespread conflict, some of which occurred on a regular basis.
He told BBC Radio Five Live's Wake Up To Money programme that a fifth of survey respondents thought disagreements fostered better performance but that most employees did not like it.
Key grievances cited in the report were people who passed others' work off as their own and those who would not work as a team.
People who simply liked to be disruptive to colleagues formed another concern and bullying was found to be common.
"One of the other issues of the research is the important role of middle management in spotting it early and taking steps to resolve it, because a degree of conflict is probably good for the employer but if it gets out of hand it clearly disrupts," he said.
Women were found to be twice as likely to "work around" issues as men, he added.
The Workplace Bullying website states that 53 per cent of respondents to a BBC survey said they had been the target of some form of intimidation at work.
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