Remedies to Reduce Causes of Unproductive Conflict - Essay Example

Remedies to Reduce Causes of Unproductive Conflict Introduction Elise is a good leader and CEO of Main Street Bakeries. She understands that keeping customers and employees satisfied and happy is important to enhance improved performance at the workplace and increased sales. All the stores of her company have low employee turnover, except store seventy five which has had four assistant managers in less than two years (Raines, 2013). This indicates that the employees at the store are not satisfied. As a result, Elise and the HR manager, Ben, decide to find out the problem at the store. From Ben’s investigation, it is clear that the employees, especially assistant managers, at store seventy five are not satisfied because they are not given an opportunity to participate in decision making processes within the store. The manager of the store, Janice, never delegates responsibilities, and does not communicate policies from the corporate headquarters. There is also an unfair distribution of merit bonuses, which reflects discrimination at the workplace. This indicates poor communication, poor delegation of responsibilities, and unfairness at the workplace which cause high level of conflict at the workplace. This paper recommends three remedies that Elise should implement to reduce the causes of unproductive conflict at store seventy five. Remedy 1: Building Supportive Infrastructure and Power Structure To reduce the causes of conflict, it is important to delegate responsibilities effectively and given junior managers an opportunity to participate in decision making. This can be achieved by providing supportive infrastructure and power structure. In terms of supportive infrastructure, the company should encourage good budgeting approach, confidentiality, value alignment, top management support, and effective feedback mechanism (Cloke and Goldsmith, 2001). The power structure should also be improved to include delegated power, disbursed decision making, and collaborative task performance (Raines, 2013). The problem experienced at Main Street Bakeries, store seventy-five is that the top management is not supportive. Janice fails to provide fair bonuses and support at the workplace. The changes made are not communicated, and employees fail to understand the need for such changes (Raines, 2013). Supportive infrastructure should be developed to resolve this problem. First, the upper management should develop values and virtues that guide responsibilities in every organizational level. If these values and virtues are exercised in the store, they create an effective organizational culture that encourages collaborations and reduces power struggle. Supportive infrastructure may also be provided by aligning values of the store with those of the organization. Main Street Bakeries focuses on customer and employee satisfaction, so the strategic plan and philosophy of the store should be based on the value of customer and employee satisfaction rather than individual interests and beliefs of the manager. Supportive power structure should also be encouraged to improve delegation of responsibilities and encourage collaboration at the workplace. Currently, the manager of store seventy five does not give others the opportunity to make decisions (Raines, 2013). She does not show the responsibility to communicate important information to junior managers in the store. This has broken down communication and led assistant managers to feel unimportant. Therefore, Ben should propose a supportive power structure to be implemented at store seventy five so that the manager understands that it is her responsibility to delegate duties, and not to impose decisions without consultations. The management style of Janice seems to be a traditional hierarchical one because she is attempting to accomplish her goals over the objections of her juniors. This causes conflict. Conflicts can be avoided by implementing a power structure that works effectively by communicating vision and delegates duties and decision making responsibilities to lower level managers (Raines, 2013). Disbursed power and authority leads to improved performance because it allows junior managers to provide their ideas and contribute to the decision making of the organization. In traditional hierarchical approach, managers gave orders and the rest of the organization followed. In the modern era, things are changing. That is why there is a high rate of turnover in seventy-five store. Nowadays, people do not simply follow orders; they want to exercise power too. A supportive environment at Seventy-five store should be encouraged to build a positive relationship between the manager and her assistants, so that power and authority can be maintained and turnover is reduced. To avoid attribution bias, a democratic leadership style should be encouraged over authoritarian approach (Raines, 2013). Communication breaks down when attribution bias sets in; that is what is taking place at the seventy-five store. Lack of good information flow of information leads employees to seek consolation elsewhere; hence they decide to quit the organization. This can be reduced by developing a power structure that allows the manager to share power and authority with other junior managers. Remedy 2: Training and Process-based Focus on Fairness and Justice It is also clear that the employees at store number seventy-five are not happy with the how merit bonus is distributed in the store. The manager seems to use a biased approach to distribute resources. This demonstrates lack of fairness and justice. According to (Raines, 2013) procedural and distributive justice should be implemented using a process-focused approach to enhance fairness and increase employee satisfaction at the workplace. People naturally have the desire for fairness, and they react negatively when they feel they are not treated fairly. In an organizational context, employees may leave the organization if they feel that the managers are not treating them fairly. The need for fairness has been demonstrated using the theory of relative deprivation which suggests that a feeling of injustice arises when one sees that other people are receiving more from a distribution (Raines, 2013). Therefore, distribution of payment or benefits such as merit bonuses at the workplace should be done equally so that employees feel a sense of fairness. Without the sense of fairness, employees will be dissatisfied and seek fairness elsewhere, leading to high turnover. One of the most important ways of promoting fairness in the organization is by using a process-focused approach rather than favoritism. Using a stipulated procedure to distribute merit bonus reduces favoritism and bias. Procedural justice should also be used to distribute merit bonuses. Procedural justice refers to the fairness of the process used to make decisions or carry out an activity involving and affecting more than one person (Raines, 2013). If the process used is considered by employees to be fair if it is transparent, respectful, and gives room for dialogue and participation in decision making (Raines, 2013). Ben may suggest to Elise to implement a distribution process that is based on performance, and communicated transparently to avoid suspicions and bias. Training may also be provided to create awareness about employee conflict and effects of fairness (Cloke and Goldsmith, 2001). Employees’ satisfaction depends on how they see fairness. Training should be provided to create awareness on how to deal effectively with unfairness, and reduce conflicts resulting thereof. The corporate headquarters needs to develop a training program for the manager, assistant managers, and employees of the store to train them about procedural justice and process-focused fairness. Remedy 3: Developing a Collaborative process Collaboration throughout the store should be encouraged, and aligned with the values of the organization to improve communication and encourage a positive relationship between the managers and employees. One of the major problems that cause conflicts at the workplace of store number seventy five is poor flow of information due to breakdown of communication (Raines, 2013). Secondly, the work environment is unfriendly, and employees do not support each other or build relationships. These problems can be solved by developing collaborative tools to encourage employees to communicate, provide feedback, and participate in decision making of the organization. One of the ways to promote collaboration at the workplace is to create platforms in social media or wikis where employees can engage in constructive discussions and provide ideas about various activities and management. These platforms should be created by the management, and access should be restricted to the members of store number seventy five to enhance confidentiality and privacy. Some of the collaborative tools may include Facebook pages, has tags on twitter, and boards on Pinterest. These platforms give employees an opportunity to participate in decision making and provide ideas concerning various issues in the company. In this regard, employees will feel that their contributions are felt. They then become satisfied, leading to reduced turnover. Employees may also negotiate for fair distribution of power and merit bonuses by using these collaborative tools. Framing is an important concept that determines how employees define or construct facts. Framing is the process by which people in authority construct a viewpoint to encourage an interpretation of a particular idea in a specific manner (Raines, 2013). The manager at store number seventy five is framing situations in a manner that creates competition rather than collaboration. The collaboration tools mentioned above should therefore be developed to allow managers to frame issues in a collaborative manner. Conclusion There is a high turnover of assistant managers at store number seventy-five of Main Street Bakeries more than any other store of the company. This turnover is caused by poor communication, lack of delegation of authority and power, poor work relationships, unfriendly work environment, and unfair distribution of merit bonuses. This paper has provided three remedies of causes of conflicts. The three remedies are: training and process-based focus on fairness and justice, developing a collaborative process, and building supportive infrastructure and power structure. Supportive power structure and collaborative process improve communication and encourage positive work relationships, leading to employee satisfaction. A process-focused and procedural justice approach to fairness is also important to create a positive perception of how resources are distributed in the store, leading to employee satisfaction and reduced turnover. References List Cloke, K. and Goldsmith, J. (2001). Understanding the Culture and Context of conflict: Resolving conflicts at work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Raines, S. (2013). Conflict management for managers: Resolving workplace, client, and policy disputes. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Read More