Resolving Individual Disputes within the Workplace - Assignment Example

Running Head: Resolving Individual Disputes Resolving Individual Disputes [Institute’s Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Why Does Conflict exist in the Workplace? 3 Case Study 1 – Sara & Brenda 5 Case Study 2 – John & Barbara 7 Case Study 4 – Performance Management 9 References 11 Why Does Conflict exist in the Workplace? For few decades, the world has altered into a global village where workplaces no longer have people from only one cultural background but consists of employees having different ethnicity, speaking different languages, coming from diverse social and religious background, etc that has resulted in complicated workplaces where conflicts have become a common thing. It was a common thing before the globalization as well; however, this multi-faceted existence of organizations today has resulted in occurrence of conflicts to a greater extent. As the result, it has now become critical for employers and HR managers to ensure conflict resolution at an appropriate time, and thus, group dynamics has become an important notion in the domain of human resource management. In the business world today, proprietorship is diminishing gradually and one can observe that individuals can no longer take care of everything by themselves. As the result, no one person has now the capability to perform all the tasks alone and still survive in this competitive business world. In this regard, organizations are no longer a one-man show and thus, workplaces have now become a platform for people to sit together and work for the same objective of their organization’s success. During this period, different tasks and goals come and go and as every human is different, this results in occurrence of conflicts in workplaces. According to Bruce Tuckman, every group and in this paper’s case, people in workplace go through five stages of “forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning” (Singh, pp. 240, 2009). During these different stages, individuals at a workplace have to make different decisions and decide the fate of their organization, which is never an easy task and due to difference of opinions, experience, knowledge, expertise, and skills; conflicts arise. Conflicts may exist in different forms in the workplaces. They may occur between two employees during completion of a task or may occur between an employee and an employer, and/or can also occur between a whole group and an employee/employer. In this regard, conflicts themselves are not simple notions and most of the times; employees/employers/managers are not even able to recognize the conflict that results in crisis in the organizations. Another major reason of conflicts occurring in the workplaces is scarcity of resources. Sometimes, two or more employees get the same task; however, one or two of them get to use a resource that becomes unavailable for a third employee resulting in a conflict. In this case, it becomes the responsibility of managers to ensure equal availability of resources for the employees to avoid the conflicts or resolve them before their occurrence (Hannaway and Hunt, pp, 49, 1995). One of the very common reasons of conflicts in the workplaces is difference of opinions regarding a topic/task/decision that results in disagreement between employees, employers, managers. Sometimes, a decision taken in the organization favors one or few employees and creates problems for rest, which causes conflict. In this regard, it is very important for employers and managers to take decisions while considering norms, values, culture, social backgrounds, needs/wants, and other aspects of employees that will be an efficient way of resolving the conflicts at the beginning (Hannaway and Hunt, pp, 49, 1995). Case Study 1 – Sara & Brenda In workplaces, besides group dynamics as discussed earlier, team building is one of the most imperative phases. There is a different between group formation and team building. A group is a cluster of people that although works for one goal but they are mostly concerned about completion of their individual part. However, on the other hand, in teams, every player/member puts efforts to fulfill individual part, at the same time, collaborates, and tries to support each other for team success (Scott, 2009). In today’s workplaces, it has become very important for managers to focus on effective team building, as absence of team building results in conflicts such as that of Sara and Brenda that could have been resolved much earlier and would have not resulted in so much harm to both the employees, as well as the organization. One cannot completely avoid conflicts in the workplaces, as complete absence of it will go against the nature of human psyche that has the basis on diverse mindsets (Payne, 2001). However, managers can play a role in avoiding deterioration of conflicts that occurred in the case study of Sara and Brenda. A very first step that managers need to do in case of conflict resolution is its positive consideration. It has been an observation that managers usually as also in the case of Sara and Brenda, manager took on to consider the conflict pessimistically, which could have been taken positively and would have resulted in stimulation of both employees and subsequently, conflict resolution (Goldberg et al, 2007, p. 259). In conflict resolution, listening is the most imperative element; absence of which cannot resolve any conflict at all. Analysis of the case study indicates limited absence of listening by David that deteriorated the conflict. Besides listening, it is very imperative to be unbiased during the process of conflict resolution so either of the two parties may not feel discriminated and that really happened in the case of Sara and Brenda, as Sara felt isolated from the company and had no choice but to offer her resignation. An effective way to prevent this situation was to call on a collective meeting of both Sara and Brenda and David could have played the role of mediator between the two. Particularly, mediation is a technique or a process in which a skilled person endeavors to resolve an argument/conflict by listening to arguments from the both sides on an informal platform to lighten up the environment, and subsequently, providing his recommendations and suggestions to resolve the conflict. Mediation is an efficient way of resolving conflicts based on the notions of “equality, confidentiality, freedom, and the best interest of all parties” (Goldberg et al, 2007, p. 259). In this informal meeting, David could have listened to both of them and mediated between the two that might have ended any grudges that exist between Sara and Brenda. Usually, individuals do not listen to both parties and make decisions based on perceptions and news from others, which happened in this case as well. A manager besides being a good administrator should be an effective communicator as well, and I believe, listening would have prevented the whole situation to deteriorate to the level that it went in the end. Case Study 2 – John & Barbara As discussed earlier in Sara and Brenda’s case study, as well as in the first part regarding the reasons of conflicts, it is almost impossible to avoid or eliminate conflicts in workplaces. In this regard, more important is not to learn about the ways to avoid conflicts but to learn to resolve them effectively on time. One of such conflicts happened between John and Barbara. It has been an observation that individuals at workplaces usually bully weaker people around them and similarly, weaker employees usually confront bullying based on their lack of skills, different ethnicity, minority, religion, culture, color, etc. Bullying usually results in workplace harassment that has become one of the very common notions happening in the business world globally and that occurs in the form of verbal, physical, as well as psychological assault and/or violence, which directly and indirectly deteriorate quality and quantity of work (Smith, 2007). On the other hand, employees at times use the term bullying to hide their own misdoings such as that happened in the case of John and Barbara where the Barbara accused John of bullying and discrimination when he complained her about her low quality of work and lower performance. If I had been the head of the department, I would have taken up the issue quite differently. In order to resolve such conflicts, it is very important for managers to design and come up with policies that may not allow any employee to manipulate things the way Barbara did with John. As the head of the department, I would have kept everything in writing, which would have resolved the conflict immediately. Managers should always put efforts to provide goals, task objectives, and targets to each employee on monthly and quarterly basis, which may allow them to monitor their own performance. If Barbara would have received such a target list before hand, she would have no choice but to accept John’s remarks regarding her performance. Poor communication is often the underlying cause of any conflict (Pahl, Richter, & Rohrschneider, pp. 3-10, 2009). Analysis has indicated that conflicts sometimes arise out of nothing due to lack of communication and it is an understanding that something similar to this also happened with John and Barbara, as Barbara took John’s remarks in other direction and the situation got deteriorated. Although John and Barbara had a very good working relationship before Barbara’s personal relationship started, still, it is very imperative for individuals especially ones having higher positions to try their best to keep personal and professional lives separate. One of the most efficient ways to resolve this conflict was to include another manager or appoint someone else to look after performance of the employees and discuss it with them. This would have eliminated the reason that Barbara was using to manipulate things with John. This would have not given any opportunity to Barbara to misuse her previous friendship with John in order to justify her lower performance. Lastly, this would have also initiated practice of performance management in the organization that would result in positive influence on individual, as well as organizational performance in the future. Case Study 4 – Performance Management Managing employee performance has always been a challenge for employers and managers in organizations globally, and various conflicts come on surface due to inappropriate and inefficient employee performance management that happened in the case study of Alice. One of the critical aspects of ineffective performance management is that it causes a direct impact on performance and productivity of the whole organization (Messmer, 2003). In this regard, managers should always put efforts to create team players out of the employees rather than just creating company employees or group members out of them. In addition, it is not the employee only whose performance may result in positive or negative impact on the organization; however, the company and its policies can also cause positive or negative influence on performance of the employees. Therefore, employers and managers should endeavor to create and implement HR and performance management policies that may ensure efficiency and productivity of the employees, and subsequently the organization itself (Noël & Gerhard, pp. 49-52, 2007). In the case study of Alice, one of the major problems that I would face while attempting to resolve this conflict will be to make her understand the direct and indirect impact of her individualistic attitude on other employees and on the organization. Although she has been bringing new customers and clients in the company and most of the clients are happy with her work, however, at the same time, it is very imperative that her team members and employees should also feel comfortable in performing their tasks in her presence. The case study indicates that Alice’s behavior is abrasive and volatile; however, as a manager, I will put efforts to be present in meetings and discussions during the task so I may not depend on others’ feedback but rather see things by myself, as managers should not take decisions based on others’ conceptions as discussed earlier in previous case studies. Moreover, an effective way will be to organize some workshops on teamwork for all the employees that might bring everyone together as a team rather than just as a group (Fisher, pp. 3, 2000). As far as resolving the dispute regarding junior partnership, I believe every organization has a policy of promotion, which has not been mentioned in the case study. Assuming that the policy exists, I will inform her about her managers’ feedback as well as brief overview of her team members’ feedback that will surely encourage her to act as a team player rather than just an individual in the company. At the same time, to appreciate her hard work, I will make sure to arrange appropriate rewards and benefits for her similar to that of junior partner; however, will inform her about the possibility of position if she will act as a team player in the near future. Conclusively, human resource management (Bratton and Gold, pp. 54-58, 2001) plays a considerable role in facilitating managers and employers in managing people at work in an efficient manner. By implementing efficient and effective HR strategies, managers can resolve the conflicts in a competent manner. It will be inappropriate to assume that conflicts will eliminate; thus, a manager should look forward to conflicts and put efforts to resolve them effectively. 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Payne, V. 2001. The team-building workshop: a trainers guide. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Scott, V. 2009. Conflict Resolution at Work for Dummies. John Wiley and Sons. Singh, Kavita. 2009. Organizational Behaviour: Text and Cases. Pearson Education India. Smith, R. 2007. While some employers address bullying few work policies, no laws currently exist. Human Resources Report, Bureau of National Affairs (BNA). Retrieved on September 21, 2011: http://www.workplacebullying.org/press/bna070907.html Read More