The Nature of Conflict and Mediation at the Workplace - Research Paper Example

The Nature of Conflict and Mediation at the Workplace Abstract Workplace conflict, mediation and conflict resolution have a direct impact on job satisfaction and employee performance. When these conflicts are resolved through proper mediation and conflict resolution techniques, the outcome is very productive and the employees remain motivated. On the other hand, poor attempts to resolve workplace conflicts result in increased job dissatisfaction and reduced morale. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, this research examined the responses and narratives of employees of two different companies. The findings implied that since the nature of conflicts, the mediation strategies and conflict resolution plans employed by the two companies were different, hence the outcome in the form of job satisfaction level was also different. Although the research shed extensive light upon the issue related to workplace conflicts, there is need for further research to take this study at a broader level where companies from different demographic locations and cultures are compared in order to get a better understanding of the concept of workplace conflict and conflict resolution. Introduction Conflict, mediation and resolution are a necessary part of a successful journey in the life of an organization. Conflicts occur at every level in the workplace during achievement of organizational goals. Better resolved at personal level, some conflicts get so big that a mediation strategy is required to resolve them. Before going into the niceties of the research paper, it is deemed important to define some important terms that will be used frequently in the coming pages. Masters and Albright (2002, p.14) define conflict as “a disagreement between two or more parties who are independent.” Conflict is something that almost every one of us has experienced to some extent at the workplace with a superior, a colleague, a subordinate, or a customer. We experience distress and sorrow over the dispute and this increases our workplace stress and finally creates disastrous impacts on our job satisfaction. Conflicts weigh heavily on the organization in terms of cost as well because engaging in a conflict and taking time out to create a conflict resolution plan, a mediation strategy, or arranging a third party mediator, demands resources and finances. Also, the time and energy that is spent resolving conflicts can be better used at fruitful projects and milestones. Thus, avoiding and resolving them if they occur becomes necessary if the company’s interests are kept in focus. If conflicts go unresolved, this increases dissatisfaction and the overall organizational culture is destroyed which is very likely to bring bad name to the company. Resolution or no resolution affects not only the individual’s activities at the workplace but his personal life is also disturbed. Managing a conflict is an important task that occurs at three levels, according to Masters and Albright (2002, p.13). According to them, first of all an individual must know how to deal with the conflict at personal level like when he enters a conflict with a senior, a junior, a colleague, or a client. Second, he must be able to enable others in the organization to manage their personal conflicts. This is important because those conflicts will eventually come to you taking your extra time if they are not resolved in time by the people involved. Third, he must be able to work out an effective plan or strategy that should make sure that workplace conflicts are avoided and if occur then resolved in time. Conflicts at work “reflect systemic processes and patterns in how work gets done” (Masters & Albright, 2002, p.13) thus it is important to determine those patterns so that better conflict management is made possible. It is also important to discuss here why at all managing a conflict at workplace is important and why mediation becomes necessary. Moore (1996, p.15) defines the mediation as the involvement of a third party, the mediator, in the resolution of the conflict, where the mediator has no personal relations with any of the conflicting parties involved. The mediator does not make decisions but assists the parties to reach such a solution that is acceptable for all those involved. Doherty and Guyler (2008, p.2) suggest that “there is a direct ratio between the quality of relationships across the workplace and long-term business effectiveness and success.” They assert that although driving a business with an aggressive attitude and not caring for conflict resolution proves good in the short term, however such businesses do not sustain for longer periods of time. This is because relationships develop over time and the quality of relationships that prevail in the internal and external environment of the organization is very important for the sustainability of the business in the long run. Hence, power cannot drive a business if long-term organizational goals are to be achieved. For this, a cool attitude where conflicts are solved right when they arise is necessary. During the conflict resolution process, the importance of communication cannot be denied. This is actually the role of the mediator to get the two parties get at communicative terms with each other so that they understand each other’s point of view and can comprehend the complaints of the other. We all know that communication is the key to success of a business. Conflicts usually arise when there is a gap in communication which leads to misunderstandings and disputes. The mediator also has to work out such strategies that manage and control the anger of the parties involved, without himself getting emotional, angry, frustrated and biased. For business officials, it is important to learn how to deal with the employees’ difficult behaviors that lead to disputes between the seniors and their subordinates. Understanding each employee’s nature and leading him accordingly prevents conflicts. Business owners should also work out policies that ensure that there is no cultural and gender discriminations in the workplace because these are some of the major causes of workplace conflicts. Literature Review Research has also suggested that various types of conflicts arise within an organization due to which nearly all workplaces implement “workplace jurisprudence” which include the rules to resolve conflict, according to Gwartney-Gibhz and Lach (1991, p.187). Hyde et al. (2006) conducted a research in which they determined how workplace conflict management related to “self-reported measures of stress, poor general health, exhaustion and sickness absence due to overstrain or fatigue” (p. 2218). They surveyed 9309 non-supervisory employees registered in companies in Sweden and Finland. The findings concluded that communication was the best method that could be employed to resolve conflict and those employees who resolved their disputes through discussion and shared communication reported that they very less often suffered from workplace stress and anxiety. However, those employees often went through depression and sickness absence who reported that their conflicts were not being resolved or that no attempt from higher officials had been made to arrange for a mediator. The researchers also found that those employees also underwent work related stress who reported that their conflicts were being resolved through the use of authority and power. Hence, Hyde at al. concluded from their research that “workplace conflict resolution is important in the health of employees in addition to traditional psychosocial work environment risk factors” (p.2218). Edelman, Erlanger and Lande (1993, p.497) examined in their research how the internal complaint handlers, who are assigned the duty of conflict resolution, work out strategies to resolve discrimination conflicts that arise in the workplace. They have discussed that these complaint handlers have their own conceptions of civil rights law and these conceptions have influence upon conflict resolution. They conducted several interviews and found that the incorporation of civil rights law in the “management realm” (p. 497) did not do much good in eliminating discrimination conflicts. Fuller (2002) conducted a similar research in which he examined worker-management conflict resolution in companies in Cuba. They stated that power inequalities between the workers and the management were the biggest cause of conflict between the two. However, they found that when appropriate conflict resolution strategies were employed, it empowered the workers and increased their job satisfaction. Covin (2004) came up with a different approach. In his research, he determined how employee involvement helps in conflict resolution. He used data from the Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) conducted by Statistics Canada, and analyzed those results to find out how employee involvement programs were deemed important to resolve workplace disputes. They found that where employees were empowered and enabled to participate in the decision-making process, there the grievance rates were very low. Stress was low in unionized workplaces. Nonunion workplaces had implemented grievance procedures but there the grievance rates were not low. Stamato (1992) studied the importance of mediation in the resolution of conflicts related to sexual harassment in the workplace. He found that when no mediator was arranged, the sexual harassment cases were taken to the court and the hearing procedures and all the related processes tended to reduce workplace confidentiality. The need arose for a mediation procedure that could assist the companies to surface their sexual harassment cases without much exposure. Mediation also helped reduce sex discrimination. Chan and Goto (2003) examined in their study how Hong Kong employees belonging to different cultures perceived conflict resolution. They found that because the workplace was culturally diverse, many conflicts usually arose between the superiors and subordinates if they belonged to different cultures. This social distance determined how the employees perceive the conflicts and how they shared responsibilities toward solving them. Jameson, Bodker and Linker (2010) have emphasized mainly upon the emotional states of the parties involved in a conflict. They state that not much research has been done in the context of emotions during conflict resolution. They assert in their research that it is important that parties’ emotions should be given special importance because this helps build trust between the mediator and the parties which accelerates the process of conflict transformation. The researchers studied eight simulated mediations taken from conflict situations and examined the importance of communication between the parties. They found that mediators should have an extreme capability in maintaining a shared communicative environment between the conflicting parties because this emotional communication makes them better understand each other’s perspectives. In support to the research conducted in the past, this paper is going to re-interpret the understanding of the workplace conflict, mediation and resolution. Research Design This is a qualitative research in which the participants were surveyed through questionnaires which contain open-ended and closed-ended questions. Two personal interviews were also carried out with the managing directors of the participating companies. The qualitative findings from the survey helped make a comparison between the two companies in order to determine the nature of conflicts and the relationship between mediation strategies and job satisfaction. Methodology Participants The population of interest was employees in two newly registered companies in , namely . The employees included those who had been working in the companies since many years and also those who were newly licensed. Both kinds of employees, old and young, were included to determine the difference in their conceptions. Total number of participants was 515 of whom 2 gave personal interviews and 513 completed the survey. Out of these, 2 who were interviewed were the managing directors of the two companies; and those who completed the survey included 34 managers of different departments, 28 project supervisors, and 451 workers of different levels. 60% of all participants were male and 40% were female. The mean of their ages would be 40. 55% employees working with the companies had more than 20 years of working experience; while, the rest 45% were newly registered employees who had been given license within previous two years. 150 of those 513 respondents who completed the survey wrote narratives at the end of the open-ended questionnaires. These narratives told their experiences at the workplace during the conflict and when they received or did not receive any mediation or conflict resolution plan. The rest 363 respondents simply answered to the closed-ended questions with yes or no replies, and to questions which had to be answered grading from 1-10. The responses to these questions were very useful in making an exact idea about what kind of perception the employees had, what was the nature of conflicts, and what they were experiencing at the workplace. Data Collection Data were collected through a mailed survey using Tailored Design Method that was sent to the participants to be filled. Tailored Design Method consists of precise groundwork and distribution of survey materials and questionnaire so that response rate is increased. It was accordingly noted that due to the efficiency of this method, 150 participants found themselves willing to share their personal experiences and stories in the form of narratives at the end of their questionnaires. Filled questionnaires were kept track of so that none of them got missed accidentally, especially when these were to be collected through postage. As far as personal interviews are concerned, structured interviews were prepared consisting of all research questions. Appointments were taken. The interviewees, who were the managing directors of both the companies, responded to all questions. They talked about the nature of conflicts their companies frequently experienced and about the mediation strategies they used to resolve those conflicts. They discussed how the employees engaged in decision-making process and if they felt need to arrange for a third part mediator in any conflicting situation. The participants were encouraged to openly express their views and opinions so that a better idea could be obtained to facilitate making a comparison between the approaches adopted by the two companies. The distribution of survey, collecting the results, and conducting personal interviews, took 6 weeks in total. Analysis After the data were collected, the analysis part of the research was conducted. The narratives which the respondents wrote at the end of the survey were recorded down verbatim and then were analyzed using content analysis. “Content analysis takes texts and analyses, reduces and interrogates them into summary form through the use of both pre-existing categories and emergent themes in order to generate or test a theory”, according to Cohen at al. (2007, p.476). Content analysis analyzes big chunks of texts and reduces them to fewer understandable chunks based upon specific coding techniques. Moreover, NVivo7 is a software that is used to analyze the qualitative responses and it was used in this research to analyze the narratives and responses after they were read and reread multiple times. Data reduction was accomplished by writing in the margins, making footnotes and counting the frequency of analogous annotations and comments. An expert was consulted to independently evaluate the responses and the narratives to get an exact idea that the responses fit the criteria of workplace conflict. A thematic content analysis was then conducted, comparisons were made, patterns were noted, and details were discussed. After this, the data were coded based upon the themes and patterns that were found after the analysis of the responses. Although all responses were deeply considered, noted down and read, however data saturation was achieved just after the analysis of 134 responses. The analysis portion of the research took approximately two weeks. Findings The research aimed to compare the nature of conflicts, the mediation strategies, and the outcome of conflict resolution, among the two mentioned companies. Nature of Conflicts When the nature of conflicts and mediation plans were taken into account, the outcome did not surprise. 70% of the employees of company A reported that there were frequent conflicts between the management and the workers. The main reasons that were reported through narrations were work overload, inflexible deadlines, low wages, and no bonuses or compensations. One employee wrote, “It is frustrating when you want the management to give you a compensation and all you get is the we-will-see-what-we-can-do sort of reply and a promise which never gets fulfilled.” The survey results for company A showed that the nature of conflicts were typically managerial. Results of company B showed that the nature of conflicts were a bit different. Company B employees also reported several conflicts that arose from time to time. One of the major conflicts that company B went through some months back was the implementation of American with Disabilities Act (ADA) when an overtly obese but competent candidate applied for a vacation. The management and employees entered into a dispute concerning whether obesity should be regarded as a sound physical disability for an employee to hold liable for facilities according to the Act. Another conflict arose when the higher officials made it obligatory for all employees to undergo drug testing. Most of the employees were not willing to undergo this test since they regarded it as an invasion in their private lives. 40% of company B employees reported in their narrations that there was poor communication between the management and the workers. One wrote, “It would be better if the management took each of us into account individually. We want to feel important.” Hence, the questions which were closed ended showed that company A employees were more frustrated because they underwent conflicts more frequently that company B employees. Also, the nature of conflicts between the two companies was also different. Mediation Strategies Survey results showed a remarkable difference between the mediation plans and conflict resolution strategies employed by the two companies. 51% of employees of company A reported in their narrations that the management made poor attempts to resolve a conflict. The officials did not care about arranging for a third party mediator and the employees were always requested to manage their conflicts personally without bringing them into the notice of the management. The findings showed that company A made use of power and authority approach and preferred to ignore the conflicts. On the other hand, the employees of company B reported that whenever a conflict arose like those mentioned above, the management first tried to solve it on basic level, but if the conflict got bigger, a mediator was arranged who came with his mediation strategies and worked out the problems. The survey showed that company B had arranged for a mediator during the conflicts of implementation of Americans with Disabilities Act and also during drug testing dispute. Outcome Experienced by Employees After analyzing the narrations reported by the employees of both the companies, it was found that the employees of company A were suffering from workplace stress and job dissatisfaction; while, those of company B showed good job performance and high morale. Company A employees showed a high rate of absenteeism due to stress and the number of resignations had been increasing for the last 6 years. On the other hand, company B employees were motivated enough and workplace stress was very low. Interviews Interview with the MD of company A showed that the management had immediate organizational goals which it wanted to achieve without wasting time on hiring mediators, working out mediation plans, and resolving conflicts. Also, the company did not have enough financial resources to spend on hiring a mediator. The interview with the MD of company B showed that the management of this company considered its employees as its basic asset and the company officials were ready to pay any cost to resolve any conflict that may arise among its employees. Discussion The qualitative survey and its findings helped prove that job satisfaction decreased among the employees of company A when they felt that there problems were not being resolved. They were experiencing from extra work load which they complained about with the management which did not care to resolve the issue. They were also not comfortable with work schedule and deadlines about which they frequently got into conflicts with the management. They also complained about their low salaries and no compensations. When they felt that it was no use entering into conflicts, they got into stress which increased their job dissatisfaction due to which the number of absentees per day and the number of resignations per year increased. On the other hand, the employees of company B also got into conflicts with the company officials but they were satisfied with their job and their morale was high because they knew that whenever they would have a dispute with the company or among each other, the officials will always be there to help them out. The employees of this company were sure enough that the company will arrange for best mediator party and will have the conflict resolved. Thus, the rate of absenteeism and number of resignations in company B every year was much fewer as compared to company A. Limitations in the Study and Recommendations There were some limitations in this research. First, the study did not specify what kinds of disputes or what level of disputes could be included in the category of conflicts that really needed a third party mediator. However, the expert who was consulted to analyze the findings proved to be very helpful in confirming that the disputes reported in the narrations really fit onto the criteria of workplace conflicts needing external mediation. Second, the research included companies that were located in the same city due to which data saturation was reached much earlier after analyzing only 134 responses. It is recommended that in future research, companies from different states must be analyzed so that it should be known whether the nature of conflicts depends on demographics or culture of one region or the nature of conflicts varies with different demographic locations. Conclusion This survey provided the employees with the opportunity to share their experiences related to workplace conflicts. The findings helped to expand the understanding regarding what kinds of conflicts usually arise in business companies and how different companies use different mediation strategies to work out those conflicts. The survey also helped to understand the perception of employees about conflict resolution and how they responded to the management’s style of resolving disputes. The research gave an in-depth study regarding the emotional experiences of employees and observed the pattern of responses which showed that all employees wanted to participate in the conflict resolution process and to feel empowered. The survey also revealed the fact that good managements do not care how much financial resources are spent on mediation and make best possible plans to resolve conflicts. They value their employees and want to keep them happy. This increases job satisfaction and raises the morale. On the other hand, bad management only cares about the accomplishment of goals and ignores the emotions and comfort of its workers. Although the research is comprehensive enough, yet further research is needed to fully understand the nature of workplace conflict in diverse environments and in different cultures so that appropriate steps should be taken to eliminate the ignorant behavior of management toward workplace conflict. References Chan, D.K., & Goto, S.G. (2003). Conflict resolution in the culturally diverse workplace: some data from Hong Kong employees. Applied Psychology, 52(3), pp. 441-460. Cohen, L., Manion, L., Morrison, K., & Morrison, K.R.B. (2007). Research Methods in Education. USA: Routledge. Covin, A.J.S. (2004). The relationship between employee involvement and workplace dispute resolution. Industrial Relations, 59(4), pp. 681-704. Doherty, N., & Guyler, M. (2008). Why should I find about workplace mediation? The Essential Guide to Workplace Mediation & Conflict Resolution: Rebuilding Working Relationships. USA: Kogan Page Publishers. Edelman, L.B., Erlanger, H.S., & Lande, J. (1993). Internal dispute resolution: the transformation of civil rights in the workplace. Law & Society Review, 27(3), pp. 497-502. Fuller, L. (2002). Power at the workplace: The resolution of worker-management conflict in Cuba. World Development, 15(1), pp. 139-152. Gwartney-Gibhz, P.A., & Lach, D.H. (1991). Workplace dispute resolution and gender inequality. Negotiation Journal, 7(2), pp. 187-200. Hyde, M., Jappinen, P., Theorell, T., & Oxenstierna, G. (2006). Workplace conflict resolution and the health of employees in the Swedish and Finnish units of an industrial company. Social Science and Medicine, 63(8), pp. 2218-2227. Jameson, J.K., Bodker, A.M., & Linker, T. (2010). Facilitating conflict transformation: mediator strategies for eliciting emotional communication in a workplace conflict. Negotiation Journal, 26(1), pp. 25-48. Masters, M.F., & Albright, R.R. (2002). Managing workplace conflict. The Complete Guide to Conflict Resolution in the Workplace. USA: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Moore, C. (1996). The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Stamato, L. (1992). Sexual harassment in the workplace: Is mediation an appropriate forum? Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 10(2), p.162-172. Read More