Root of employees conflicts and its management strategies

Establishing rapport with my new colleagues (Mae and Engr. Jason) in the new industry that I work with
Photo Credits: Mae Martillana

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:8-9)

Occurrence of conflict in any workplace is normal, which is part of doing business. It often roots from issues between employees within the company.  No matter how nice an employee may be, there would be a time that someone from within would either strike you from behind or make an irritable scene that confronts one's patience.  

Conflicting Values

The workplace is made of individuals with own perspective of the world.[1] Several employees possess strong beliefs, wherein finding the middle ground is not their cup of tea. These convictions can clash with colleagues’ which thereby creates a disagreement. For example, if an employee strongly resists workplace diversity, this individual may have difficulty accepting other employees different from her/him.  One must make an effort to build the first move to be more indulgent to these individuals with conflicting values (including race, religion or ethnic background) should one desire to elude this situation. 

Differing Concentrations

An employee who pursues own career goals without being concern of the organizational goals and its well-being causes conflict among her/his peers.

When an employee decides to go in for her/his own career goals, without regard for the organizational goals and its well-being, it results in strife among her co-workers. It happens when the employee turns to be concentrated on attaining personal goals while overlooking its effects towards her/his peer within the company and the company itself. For example, one may “ignore” that she/he is a part of a team with the objective to accomplish for a particular task in a team effort. As a result, this employee may toil based on her own schedule and preference, creating antipathy in the circle. 

Battles on Individuality

  

Everybody is unique that is why personality disagreements in the workplace are inescapable. Others are introvert while some are sociable. Basically, crisis takes place when these opposing characters are intolerable of each one. For example, the more overenthusiastic worker may feel insulted if the more reclusive doesn’t talk a lot to the former. The latter may sense it not as peer’s personality but as an insult. Besides, reserved person’s technique on assigned task may be methodical while the gregarious person may be instinctive. Thus, clash naturally crops up without respects of its own frontier.

Deficient Transmission of Message

Misapprehension can happen if the manager asks one employee to communicate important instructions to the other employees, but the latter is not be up to snuff. Passing on wrong information can lead to a half-baked task and employees pointing the finger at each other when wrongly executed as a consequence. 

Individual Crisis/Connections

  

Known for being a stressful place because of deadlines, work environment can be made worse and detrimental when personal dissimilarity starts to take shape to the concerned, brought by  problems that are generated both at home or in the workplace.

Marital or parental issues for example may be brought to the office by employee because of inability to set aside work from home, which causes conflict.  Once this happens, a particular employee may have the impression that this employee is isolating her/himself, although she/he’s not but simply laden with a burden. So if an introverted person prefers not to unveil her/his struggle, leaving these problems at home would be healthy. 

Causes of Conflict

    

• Lack of Information 

Conflict surfaces when one individual feels it lacks significant information. When employees are repeatedly encountering adjustments without being informed, or if there are decisions taken that the employee senses of their involvement but were not notified,[2] this can result of employees-managers conflict.

• Scarce Wherewithal

Inadequate needed resources can cause strife among employees, and between employees and the employer.  Competition among employees for the available resources occurs if employees feel of insufficient resources looked-for to do their task, resulting to blaming the management.  

• Managerial Ineptitude

Ineffective managers can create conflict in the workplace. A manager who does not understand the work assignments of her/his minions, or is unacquainted of the duties and responsibilities that each employee is thought to undertake can cause friction and clash. Employees who are unable to find good spirits in managers brought by incoherent pronouncements or terrible planning also cause dissention. 

More contagious smiles are expected in the future through respecting each one's frontiers.
Photo Credits: Mae Martillana

  

Clash Resolution

Several managers prefer to avoid tension on the intention of preserving synchronization, without grasping that by avoiding tension, all together they are unwittingly creating depository and internal trouble between employees. Not allowing a conflict to grow and unbridled, a leader must be expected to defuse or minimize it, through the following approaches:[3]

• Right Timing 

The best time to leap in is when there is a solid confirmation of the employee’s misconduct that is negatively colliding with others’ performance.

If everyone around knows that it must be dealt with but the manager is still waiting to act, peers’ respect is at stake. Leadership is taking the bully by the horns and tackling the issues before it backfires.   By waiting too long during times of difficulty, those around starts begin to make the decisions that manager is hesitant to make, and thereby losing the momentum as a leader.  Immature leadership as in this case puts one’s leadership reputation in jeopardy.  

• Be acquainted with Limitations 

Strife turns to be more complex and uncontrollable without being aware of the employees’ limitations.   Identify the risks and rewards of conflict resolution within the border of each of the employees.

Facilitate them to identify when they’re inclined to cross the line by alert observation; know behavioral inclinations that seem to set off particular attitudes, incite mood swings, or display a lack of self-awareness. It can be attained by consistent training sessions to set a mirror and strengthen performance expectations for each of the workers. This not only allows identification of their strife limitations but more significantly is the establishment of standards that facilitates the prevention of conflict.

Managers who dynamically involve in training and discovering about those on the team end up dealing with much less strife.   The new workplace symbolizes a developing diversity in the types of people that managers administer. Know who they are should managers desire to be aware how they will impact the expected environment.

• Value individuality

Instead of imposing influence, chain of command or rank, value the employees' uniqueness and discover to see things from differing standpoint for better comprehension on how to avoid future conflict.   Conflict resolution is once in a blue moon a black and white encounter.   As a matter of fact, there are growingly grey areas these days as the workplace evolves to be more generationally and culturally diverse. Valuing differences helps a better understanding on how to manage conflict with people in general and their limitations.

Logically, people are most at ease in dealing with those whom they trust and naturally drift down.  Managers must recognize that each employee represents a unique opportunity for professional growth and development.   Realistically, business is all about people intelligence, and without acceptance of this reality, managers remains naively creating strife with those employees they are not at home with, which eventually place their contributions underrated.

• Face the conflict

Conflict must be confronted face-to-face. Instead of waiting, activate leadership to deal with the conflict before situations push the manager’s fist.

Strife can create an emotional mental state that makes it more complex to manage.  Hence, it must be confronted before it aggravates.   Difficulty is very big when it is all that manager can see, but it is very small when in the presence of the rest of all the employees around. 

Viewpoint is not at all times a reality and oftentimes managers don’t confront the most evident situation before allowing other opinion to disfigure what they believe to be proper. The most valuable leaders have the self-awareness and discernment to confront and resolve the strife.   Addressing conflict is much like any other form of harsh conditions, wherein it is either faced or ignored.  

Leadership is about foreseeing the unforeseen. Don’t complicate matters by allowing conflicts to worsen.   Trust your uniqueness to take enough action before it boomerangs on you and the organization as a whole.

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References: 

[1] Grace Ferguson, What Causes Conflict Between Employees in an Organization?,http://smallbusiness.chron.com/causes-conflict-between-employees-organization-157.html

[2] George N. Root III, Major Causes of Conflict, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/major-causes-conflict-960.html

[3] Glenn Llopis, 4 Ways Leaders Effectively Manage Employee Conflict,   http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2014/11/28/4-ways-leaders-effectively-manage-employee-conflict/#13ad5e075dde