The situation of conflicts is one of the most usual and common at the organisational workplace. As every member of the organisation has a different thinking process, it is common to have chaos among people. This is a dilemma which every manager has to face in every day operations. The more efficiently a manager overcomes these conflicts; the better will be the management skills. The capability of recognizing the issue and solving it with high level of judicious, honesty and effectiveness is considered as conflict management. The approach of conflict management can be defined as discovering and handling the conflicts in a more wise and efficient manner. Conflict is the component of every business, but it is necessary to have knowledge regarding to the resolution of these conflicts. In present time, everyone at the organisation wants to attain best outcomes and to be at the first position people start pulling down each others. This results in disputes between different employees of the organisation. The response of any manager towards an organisational argument shows the ability, efficiency and effectiveness of the employee to resolve those conflicts. The paper will present a various methods of conflict management which are useful in diverse situations of conflict at the organizational workplace, the individual skills require for managing conflict, potential consequences of the conflict remained unresolved and role of external arbitration in the resolution of conflict. The report will also highlight the role of communication, team work, review systems and cultural backgrounds in the organisational conflicts and conflict management as well as present actions for minimizing the conflicts in the organisations.
Evaluate the suitability of different methods of conflict management in different situations
Following are the various methods of conflict management such as collaborating, competing, avoiding, compromising and accommodating.
The collaborating approach can be understand as joining up of managers to reach at the destination goal in their own manner. The most unique way to resolve the problem is the collaboration of managers where there is an association among the managers to reach at the destination goal in their own manner is known as collaborating. The collaboration approach brings different ideas of different managers at the same time and this helps in getting the best possible method to deal with any problem. Another is compromising approach means losing something because of getting the permanent solution of any conflict or issue. When both employee as well as manager are not able to get for what they are working for then they try to find some short term resolution so that they can divert their mind and pay attention towards the main goals of the organisation. The third approach is avoiding which can be explained as that an issue is one way which a manager might attempt to resolve conflict. This type of conflict style does not help the other staff members to reach their goals and does not help the manager who is avoiding the issue. However, this works well when the issue is small in nature or when the manager has less chances of resolution or winning. The fourth method conflict management is accommodating where the conflicts among the teams or the individuals are resolved by offering the opponent party what they want. To have organisational peace or in case of some outside force, one of the party remains calm and resolves the conflict by agreeing upon the conditions of the other party. The last method of conflict management is competing which is considered as a win-lose approach. For the achievement of the goals and objectives, the managers’ responses in an assertive manner without having cooperation of other individuals and thus it may lead to have attainment of goals at the expense of the happiness of other people. This approach is basically used when there are emergencies in the organisation and fats decisions had to me made.
Workplace or organisational conflicts are the result of the opposition of interests, values and needs among the organisational individuals while working together. There are various forms of conflicts that take place in the organisations. The inevitable disturbance and opposition of perspectives among the power and informal authority results in negative impacts upon the team members in terms of organisational conflict. There are various reasons of disputes and conflicts in the organisations and mainly in the healthcare sector such as distribution of revenues, rewards and recognition of employees, work procedures, organisational structure and many others. There took place jurisdictional disagreements among the organisational people, departments, management and unions. There are various types of conflicts comprising of favour, struggle for power, role definitions, personality clashes, jealousies and rivalries. There are also conflicts in the organisations among the individuals because of high competition in satisfaction of individual demands and needs. Ignoring any issue by the manager is not the final solution and the manager who tries to avoid conflicts cannot satisfy the employees as well as also not able to achieve the organisational goals. It results in dissatisfaction and discontented behavior of the employees which results in occurrence of a number of organisational conflicts. Avoiding conflicts can only be beneficial when the problem is minor and can be easily forbidden. Otherwise, in all other situations of the organisational conflicts, there is an essential to have intervention for the managers or the associate parties to resolve the issue. The managers or the organisational employees possess some kind of skills, abilities and competencies which help them in resolving the conflicts in a constructive manner rather than in a negative manner. The inherent competencies of the individuals help in saving the organisation from various faults and having a better and improved working place.
Following are the potential consequences of the unresolved conflict within a team:
There is a vital and noteworthy role of external arbitration in the process of conflict management as arbitration can be explained as a third party that makes a specific and firm decision on the basis of all the issues and the various other relevant factors. And both the parties involved in conflict are liable to agreed upon the decision made by the third party.
Communicate to team members their roles, responsibilities, objectives and expected standards of behavior
In managing the workplace conflicts within a team there is an efficient and significant role of communication. It is essential that there is effective communication of the roles, expected standard of behaviour, objectives and responsibilities to the team members so that there can be remained clarity in the job roles and tasks of each and every individual and less chances of conflicts takes place in the organisations. Communication is one of the significant tool to manage the organisation and the various issues that takes place in teams as there is a need of both informal as well as communication among the organisational members to develop a better understanding of each other. The informal flow of communication is the way to develop a bond of trust and association among the employees of the organisation so that the grievances, issues and conflicts can be resolved at the initial stage only and do not escalate further to the whole organisation. In the UK healthcare sector there are several organisations where there takes place open forum discussions where the employees can have an open discussion of any issue or problem they are facing so that it may resolve and do not develop as organisational conflict. Therefore effective and smooth flow of communication is the key to organisational success and resolution of organisational conflicts.
In every company and organisation, all the people have a point of interest for which they are working. And working in a team is advantageous for all but there are few negative implications too. If the team leader do not cooperate with other team members or assign those responsibilities and roles which are not according to their desired work profile then it will result in stressful and conflicting situations. There is a need to understand the constraints under which other people are working to have better team efficiency and to avoid conflicts.
Conflicts at the workplace are not just because of the difference in opinions of the organisational employees but there are various other reasons too that result in conflict in the teams and in the organisation. The organisational review systems, situations and structures and processes are few of those factors that result in organisational conflict. There are performance review systems in the organisations which are one of the key factors in the occurrence of issues and conflicts. There are employees who do not find the review system as fair and equitable and thus the sense of unfair performance review develops a feeling of de-motivation and dissatisfaction which at the end results in workplace conflicts. The organisational structure and processes are also the other major factors that are responsible for organisational conflicts. The organisational structure defines the way in which the organisational activities, policies, rules, supervision, and all other functions are designed and directed. The loopholes or bureaucracy in the organisational structure also results in organisational conflicts.
There are various actions which are used as well as can be implemented to minimize the risk of conflict at the workplace and within the teams. The first and the most important action is to set workplace-conflict guidelines where a proper set of guidelines will be implemented for analyzing, reviewing and resolving the conflict at the workplace. They next approach is to develop an effective line of communication where there is effective flow of information and clarity in the distribution of any policy among the various levels of the organisations. Other important action is to have regular training sessions and discussions for preventing the occurrence of conflicts within the teams and the organisations. The next approach is to encourage the organisational employees to have a sound acceptance towards the individual differences. The one most vital aspect for minimizing the workplace conflict is to train managers to act as mediators. The organisational must understand and resolve the issue at the initial level with a fair view so that it can help in reducing the risk of future workplace conflicts. There can also be take actions such as clarification of priorities, elimination of the gender based biasness and open discussions for minimizing the risk of conflicts within a team.
Conflicts at the workplace are not just because of the difference in opinions of the organisational employees but there are various other reasons too that result in conflict in the teams and in the organisation. The organisational review systems, situations and structures, processes, working in team and personality and cultural background of the employees are few of those factors that result in organisational conflict. The next key factor is diverse set of personality and cultural backgrounds of the individuals. In the UK healthcare sector, there are large numbers of employees which are from diverse cultural backgrounds and because of increased diversity in culture and personality of the individuals; it becomes difficult for them to understand each other and work together. While working in a team with diverse set of personality, values, cultural backgrounds and perspectives, there is occurrence of conflicts within a team.
Assess the seriousness of conflict and its potential impact
There are various forms of conflicts that take place in the organisations. The inevitable disturbance and opposition of perspectives among the power and informal authority results in negative impacts upon the team members in terms of organisational conflict. It results in dissatisfaction and discontented behavior of the employees which results in a number of negative implications such as there will be complete waste of time, loss of productivity, bad decision making, decreased motivation and upsurge turnover rate of employees.
There are employees who do not find that there are fair and equitable policies or the assessment sense that there takes place unfair performance review and partiality which develops a feeling of de-motivation and dissatisfaction which at the end results in workplace conflicts. Thus, the organisational structure and processes are required to be fair, sensitive and impartial as the organisational structure defines the way in which the organisational activities, policies, rules, supervision, and all other functions are designed and directed. The insensitivity and the impartiality in the organisational structure also results in organisational conflicts.
The course of action which can offer maximum benefits may include setting up of workplace-conflict guidelines; develop an effective line of communication, having regular training sessions and managers acting as mediators for resolving the issue at the initial level of the conflict.
There is a huge importance and significance of the involvement and engagement of the team members in the implementation of the agreed actions so that there can be a sound acceptance towards the individual differences as well as having more informal and improved discussions for declining the occurrence of the organisational conflicts.
There is a huge significance of communicating the actions to the team members who are affected as there are diverse set of personalities and cultural backgrounds of the individuals. In the UK healthcare sector, there are large numbers of employees which are from diverse cultural backgrounds and because of increased diversity in culture and personality of the individuals it becomes difficult for them to understand each other and work together and thus thy are highly affected from the situation of conflicts. The flow of communication of the actions is the way to develop a bond of trust and association among the employees of the organisation so that the grievances, issues and conflicts can be resolved at the initial stage only and do not escalate further to the whole organisation.
Conflicts at the workplace are not just because of the difference in opinions of the organisational employees but there are various other reasons too that result in conflict in the teams and in the organisation. Therefore, it is essential that the employees or the team members must adhere to the organisational structures, policies and processes, legal and ethical requirements at the time of organisational conflicts. The organisational structure and processes are also the other major factors that are responsible for organisational conflicts. Thus adherence to these factors develops a specific way in which the organisational activities, policies, rules, supervision, and all other functions are designed and directed and helps in declining the occurrence of organisational conflicts.
Conclusion
Conflicts are the inevitable part of any workplace or organisation which will take place in an organisation at one or the other point of time. From this report, it can be concluded that there are number of reasons because of which the conflicts within a team and at the workplace takes place such as organisational review systems, situations and structures, processes, working in team and personality and cultural background of the employees. To overcome these conflicts the companies and the organisations take use of various strategies and actions. These actions includes personal skills, external arbitration, setting up of workplace-conflict guidelines, developing an effective line of communication, regular training sessions and discussions, acceptance of the individual differences and various other aspects. The report concludes that it is essential to manage the workplace conflicts by various methods described in the report so that a more better and improved workplace environment could be there to work in.
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