Elements of Successful Negotiations - Essay Example

Preparation is the most vital element of a successful negotiation, it is the phase where the negotiation is won or lost (Spoelstra and Pienaar, 2008). When the members of the delegation have evaluated their mandate and objectives to be achieved during the negotiation, the first step of negotiation plan preparation is completed (Saner, 2000). Poor and insufficient preparation may result in irretrievable loss to the relationship between the parties involved in the negotiation process and the probability of further negotiations is reduced. According to Watkins (2005), sufficient preparation provides the opportunity to clearly describe the goals, recognition of core issues, understand of parties involved and assess the effectiveness of the strategies adopted for the negotiation. It is the successful preparation phase which ensures that delegation moves closer to success as defined by the objectives of negotiation.

Following is the preparation plan for the negotiation of a Dairy Company XYZ with the employee union, the number of permanent and full-time employees exceeds one hundred and all of them are members of this union. They approached the management with some demands and issues, several meetings were held and many issues were resolved but the parties still have differences on some of the crucial issues. Both parties are eager to finalize the issues and differences in the upcoming meeting. As the leader of the delegation from the Dairy Company, I propose the following negotiation plan.

Most of the issues including pay rates, classification structure, number o annual leaves, daily breaks for meals etc have been resolved in the previous meetings. Among five issues that require resolution in the next meeting include:
- the basis for the augmentation of wages during the period of the agreement,
- the process of identification and selection of the employees for future training programs and promotion,
- formation of a schedule or hour’ roster,
- the life of the agreement and
- the nature and authority of joint workplace committees.

The goal of the group is to achieve agreement on the three core issues including the life of the agreement, factors that will serve as basis for the increase in wages and hour’s roster. The union demands that the agreement should be for one year, wages should be increased according to the increase in inflation and increase in the output from the beginning of the year 2011 to till date and roster hours should be set to 152 hours per four weeks cycle. The goals set by the group are to fix the agreement life for three years; wages should be increased with productivity rather than inflation and the increase should be from the start of the agreement while the roaster hour should be flexible and the company can change it on notice of two days as compared to the five days demanded by the Union.

The life of the agreement ensures a long relationship between the employees and the dairy company because it will increase the trust of the employees, wages are directly related to the satisfaction level of the employees at the workplace (Spoelstra and Pienaar, 2008). Connecting wages with productivity will enhance the financial performance of the company and motivate the workers to increase their efficiency. The hour’s roster flexibility will allow the organization to increase the working hours during the season of increased demand for dairy products.

The training programs and the decision regarding the nature of the joint workplace committee are the least important issues for the group because most of the full-time employees have skills in the processing of milk and other dairy products, while the joint workplace committee may be given access to most of the matters according to the will of the union.

The group will adopt a cooperative strategy rather than a competitive one because the goal is to end the negotiation in a win-win situation for both parties. The reason for adopting this strategy is that the company is in the initial stages of its development and desires to earn the trust and loyalty of the employees by adopting this strategy. This is a bargaining strategy (Nixon, 2005) which will be used as a last resort if the union does not show any flexibility in their demands. The phase for utilization of this strategy will be the one when the life of the agreement and the basis for the increase in wages during that period will be discussed as these two are the most important goals for the company. Adaptability and flexibility are the two words that are favourable to successful negotiators (Guasco and Robinson, 2007). The same approach will be adopted to come up with an agreement on the aforementioned issues. The agreement life can be reduced in return for the flexibility on the wage basis and hour’s roster by the employee’s union because the wage basis must be related to the performance and productivity of the employees instead of the rate of inflation which is out of the company’s control.

Conflict may be explained as the incompatibility between two or more parties involved in the process of negotiation and the resolution of the conflict is approached after discussing the grievances of the parties (Spoelstra and Pienaar, 2008). In light of the demands presented by the employees’ union and previous sessions of negotiation, it is anticipated that a conflict may arise on the issue of the hour’s roster and life of the agreement, this conflict will be resolved by adopting flexibility and demanding the same from the other party. The less important issues mentioned above will be granted as demanded by the union of employees and flexibility will be demanded in return for the issues on which conflict arises. Read More