Conflict Resolution Strategies - Case Study Example

Human Resource Management Student name Professor’s name University name Date Executive summary Workplace conflicts are common issues that are experiences in almost all organizations. Majority of conflicts occur among employees working in a team. This paper studies a case among conflicting male and a female employee (Ann) where one female employees works with six other male colleagues. The female employee feels sidelined and is looked down by the other male colleagues. The main source of conflict is this case of gender discrimination where the males feel that a female colleague is an intruder. Conflict is also arising due to poor communication where the male employees communicate in a language that Ann should not understand. The team manager is inexperienced and has used the wrong approach in handling the issue. This paper therefore recommends on other better conflict resolution strategies that can be used to resolve the dispute. Introduction Workplaces in most cases fall into the community stereotypes of gender roles in various occupations. In occupations dominated by one gender, members of the opposite gender are often viewed as invaders. This is because one gender has also already developed a sense of ownership for certain occupations. Majority of them therefore feel that any invasion by opposite gender is disruptive and threatening. Women working in male-dominated occupations face a lot of challenges which may affect their day to day operations as well as their general career success. This is in their attempt to successfully penetrate into male dominated work environments where traditional gender roles prevail. Organizational policies and practices have also conformed to the traditional stereotypes on gender roles making women to be marginalized in their work environment. Women in male dominated occupations experience social isolation, low level of support from the male colleagues and sometimes even sexual harassment, and all these lead to workplace conflicts (Bergman, 2008). This paper discusses how social isolation based on gender in workplace leads to conflicts, its effects and what can be done to resolve the conflict. Source of conflict at Portico International The main source of conflict between Ann and her colleagues is being sidelined at the work environment. Being sidelined at the workplace means being excluded from group activities which one is expected to be involved in. a person realizes that they have been sidelined when they become aware of how they are being kept out of group conversations which they are party to. The main cause of this kind of conflict in this case is the negative response among the male colleagues which is due to gender stereotypes that has created bias towards the female colleague. Such bias makes women to be perceived as workers who are less competent when handling male dominated duties. Women therefore receive less support from their male colleagues who also create for them obstacles in accessing information and any other assistance in the workplace. Same gender employees create network ties that disadvantage the opposite gender. Women in male-dominated occupations are mainly disadvantaged when men already form their own ties. For such women to establish working relationships, they are required to express similar interests with the male colleagues. In case of conflict of interests, the female employee finds it difficult to reach out to the male supervisors whom they do not share interests. Men on the other hand share interests with their male supervisors and can therefore easily access any information and assistance. Women in these occupations find themselves in a situation where they have to conform to the interests of the male colleagues to avoid being viewed as incompetent and unable to perform their duties. Taylor (2010) refers to this situation as occupational minority, a situation where a worker is numerically infrequent in his or her work. This creates perceptions based on gender roles in the occupation, interaction of the minority with the majority and also their ability to get support from the colleagues. Taylor also explains that other men and women view women who are succeeding in male occupations as not likeable and are likely to show them hostility and deny them support. Another source of conflict in this case is gender interactions at the workplace. Male superiority is evidence in the interactions among Ann and her male colleagues where they see the woman as if she is in the wrong place. Conflicts in interactions may arise on how men interpret and give meaning to the conflict. In Portico, the male workers interpret the conflict that Ann is being overly sensitive. This indicates that they do not interpret that as a conflict but the problem being the person affected. Conflict is also seen in the way the supervisor handles grievances forwarded by Ann. The supervisor translates the grievances as the normal office banter that Ann should not take seriously. Ann is also being discriminated by the male colleagues who state that they feel awkward in her presence because of the kind of language they use. Gender discrimination in Portico seems to be part of the culture because the manager states to Ann that it is the culture of the team and that is how they do things there. This is an indication that the culture of the organization is tolerant to discrimination and it encourages someone to learn how to live in it. Another issues resulting in conflict in this case is the unwillingness of men to accommodate to accommodate a woman in their occupation. This makes it difficult for women to penetrate the male dominated occupations since the male have created an unattractive environment that cannot retain women in the occupations. Men also do not understand the challenges that women face in male dominated occupations and are not willing to support them. For example, the supervisor did not mind about the challenges that Ann is facing and could not offer her any support. Poor communication can be attributed to most of workplace conflicts including the case of Portico. Poor communication occurs where some members of a team make decisions without involving others and also not sharing information with those it will affect. This leads to poor relationships among the workers and creates an unfriendly environment that can even affect job performance. The workers develop negative feelings towards each other such that they cannot support each other when necessary. Poor communication also creates poor teamwork where members of a team cannot communicate effectively with each other. They are therefore unable to communicate to each other on expected roles and responsibilities for each member of the team. Members may also overlook the roles of each other and this may prevent them from achieving their objective. Poor communication also promotes rumors and gossip in the workplace creating tension among workers. For example in Portico, male colleagues argue that they feel awkward in presence of Ann because of the kind of language they use to communicate amongst themselves. This is an indication that there is some information that they do not share with Ann or sometimes they may be discussing negative things about her without her knowledge. This ends up creating tension among the team. Resolving the workplace conflicts Poor management of workplace conflict can really have negative effects. Conflicts can affect teamwork eventually leading to project failure. Managing conflicts is therefore a key leadership skill that managers need to posses. Managers should be able to detect and resolve conflicts by addressing any underlying tension among the employees before the conflict breaks out. Some of the costs of conflict to the organization include wastage of time that is taken to resolve conflicts. Time that would have been taken to work towards achieving organizational goals and objectives is spent resolving conflicts. Another cost is that conflicts reduce team cooperation especially where it is not well resolved. This is because it creates negative feelings towards each other, some are de-motivated and full of anger and frustrations. All this affects the productivity of individuals and their overall efforts towards achieving organizational goals and objectives. However, proper resolution of employee’s conflicts can bring benefits to the employees. These include increased understanding because the conflicting parties gain a better understanding of each other and are thereafter able to live without undermining each other. Another benefit of proper conflict resolution is increased cohesion among team members. This is because after successful conflict resolution, the parties develop mutual respect and increased ability to work together. The other benefit is improved self-knowledge because the employee are able to examine themselves and know that their goals are more important to them and they need to focus on them more. However, both the manager and the employees have a role to play in ensuring successful conflict resolution. The role of the manager in resolving conflicts Managers have a role to play in creating a workplace environment that will enable conflict resolution. This requires them to first acknowledging that the conflict exists instead of avoiding it. One of the roles that a manager can play in conflict resolution is mediation. During mediation, the manager is required to remain neutral and assist the conflicting parties to reach an agreement. The manager can use the following three strategies to mediate between the conflicting parties: Active listening: the manager should be able to actively listen as each party speaks. Similarly, he should also ensure that the parties listen to each other since they may emotionally carried away and want to speak and not listen to each other. This will help the manager to understand both sides of the conflict and its root cause. During listening, the manager should avoid being emotional and should be non-judgmental. This will help him not to empathies with one side. During listening, the manager can use open-ended questions to acquire more information from the conflicting parties (Tinsley & Jeanne, 2001). Being collaborative: the manager should be neutral and give equal chances to both parties. Each party should be allowed time to express him/herself and asked to give a written statement of the situation. The manager should therefore analyze the conflict considering the perspective of all the conflicting parties and collaboratively come up with a solution. State the organizations’ expectations for future behavior: the manager should clearly explain to the employees the damage that the conflict has caused to the organization and the future consequences of a repeated action. This ensures that other members of the organization learn from those conflicts and avoid other incidences (Wolf & Yakinthou, 2011). Apart from mediation, conflict resolution can also follow the ACAS Grievance procedure. The procedure involves both the employees and the manager in conflict resolution. It first calls for informal settlement of conflict among the conflicting employees. Where informal resolution is not possible, the matter is formally forwarded to the manager in writing properly explaining the nature of conflict. After the grievance is communicated to the manager, he/she should hold a meeting where the conflicting employees should be given an opportunity to explain their grievances and make suggestions on what they think should be done to resolve them. After the meeting, the manager should start investigations where necessary. After the manager reaches a conclusion on the actions to be taken, he/she should communicate in writing to the involved employee. If employees feel that they are contented with the decision, they are allowed to appeal. Some conflicts in the organization may be disciplinary issues where the employer can follow ACAS Disciplinary procedure. The procedure requires the manager to carry out investigations to indentify whether there is a disciplinary issue in the conflict. If a disciplinary issue is identified, the employees must be informed in writing with sufficient information provided regarding the alleged misconduct. This can be accompanied by copies of evidence or witness statements regarding the misconduct. The employee should also be requested to attend a disciplinary meeting and informed of venue and time. During the meeting, the employee is required to respond to the allegations and answer any question that is raised (ACAS, 2009). After the meeting, the manager should decide on the appropriate action which may be disciplinary or not and inform the employee. A written warning is first issue and the employee given time to reform or improve, failure to which a final warning is issued. The final option is dismissal where the employment is terminated especially in serious cases. Conclusion Organizational conflicts can have negative effects in an organization if not well resolved. This is because it kills teamwork and makes employees unable to work together. This will ultimately affect their performance. However, the manager has a big role to play in ensuring that conflicts among employees are contained so that they do not affect the performance of the organization. Being a mediator is the best way that a manager can settle conflicts since it will help restore the team togetherness leaving employees in good terms with each other. The manager should also act in a timely manner to settle conflicts before they affect the entire organization, and also to prevent the relationship among the conflicting employees from worsening. References Taylor, C.J., 2010, Occupational sex composition and the gendered availability of workplace support, Gender & Society, 24, 189-212. Bergman, B., 2008, Polarized gender thinking –visions or norms in male-dominated workplaces? International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 3, 165-175. ACAS, 2009, Code of Practice 1: Disciplinary and grievance procedures. TSO (The Stationery Office): Ireland. Tinsley, C. & Jeanne, M., 2001, "Managing Workplace Conflict in the United States and Hong Kong." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 85(2):360-381. Wolf, S. & Yakinthou, C. 2011, Conflict Resolution: Theories and Practice. New York: Routledge. Read More