Conflict Management in the Working Environment

Conflict Management in the Workplace

Conflicts have become increasingly inevitable in the contemporary working environment because of the diverse nature of the workforce. Actually, the modern workplace is a hub of diverse cultures largely because of globalization. Globalization has contributed to workplace diversity through facilitating increased migration of people who are looking for better market opportunities, personal development, and new challenges (Prause & Mujtaba, 2015, p.13). These changes have generated numerous conflict situations, which has resulted in dramatic changes to the perception of conflict. Since conflict has increased in today's working environment, conflict management has emerged as one of the most important issues for managers and other organizational stakeholders. Managers are increasingly faced with the need to identify and established effective conflict management techniques.

Conflict in the Workplace

In the past 20 years, the perception of conflict in the working environment has changed significantly because of the numerous changes in the workplace. Prause & Mujtaba (2013) contend that globalization is the major factor that has generated changes in the workplace, which have in turned increased conflicts (p.13). These conflicts emerge from the fact that globalization has resulted in higher migration of individuals who are pursuing career development and new challenges and opportunities.

The other factor contributing to increased conflicts in the workplace is the new millennium, which has offered several challenges and opportunities for businesses. Today's world is increasingly complex given the increase in diversity that has made nearly four generations to work side by side (Deyoe & Fox, n.d.). Since each of these generations are characterized by unique characteristics, several conflicts emerge as they interact with each other in the working environment.

According to Singleton et al. (2011), conflicts in the workplace are brought by the fact that people must communicate and interact with each other (p.149). Similar to every other environment, conflict is bound to happen in the workplace as people interact and communicate. This implies that conflict is inevitable in personal and professional lives of individuals. Based on this factor, workplace conflicts are brought by personality clashes and egos between employees. Conflict is primarily a natural by-product of interactions and communication between people as they seek to accomplish their personal and organizational goals.

In some cases, conflict in the workplace is a consequence of the nature of the working environment. Based on the findings of a survey, workplace conflict is sometimes brought by stress and heavy workloads (Singleton et al., 2011, p.149). In this case, conflicts are viewed as measures through which individuals express their frustrations and concerns regarding their working environment.

The other aspect of the nature of the workplace that is considered as a contributor to conflict is teams. Teams are famous means that are used by organizations across the globe to achieve organizational goals. Teams are considered advantageous in the working environment for various reasons including enhancing quality, lessening costs, and developing new products (Alper, Tjosvold & Law, 2000, p.625). As teams work towards achievement of organizational goals, they deal with several issues and challenges that in turn generate conflicts. When working in teams, conflicts emerge when people's behavior or actions infringe the organization's social norms or the rules and regulations of the organization. In most cases, such conflicts arise from differences in personalities, opinions, experience, knowledge, and education.

Singleton et al. (2011) contend that there are two types of workplace conflicts i.e. functional conflict and dysfunctional conflict. These two types of conflicts do not exist different from each other because organizations tend to have varying degrees of each of them. Functional conflict comes from differences in opinions, natural diversity, differences in project or process, rapid change, and work teams. Dysfunctional conflict arise from dysfunctional work teams, system problems, heavy workloads, favoritism, unfavorable work culture, warring egos, ineffective bureaucracy, and obnoxious people (Singleton et al., 2011, p.151).

Conflict Management Techniques in the Workplace

While conflicts are bound to happen in the workplace, they can have devastating impacts on organizational performance and productivity. Conflict in the workplace is endemic because of the nature of the working environment and interactions taking place among employees. Given the inevitability of conflict and its potential impact, managers and leaders in the working environment are faced with the need to identify suitable conflict management techniques.

Conflict management in the workplace involves developing effective measures to lessen the impact of conflict and enhance organizational productivity. Conflict management strategies are also used to improve the constructive functions so that the organization can optimize learning and effectiveness. Through designing strategies, an organization does not avoid the conflict but find effective ways of dealing with it. Therefore, conflict management in the workplace is a means through which organizations handle people's grievances and disputes in order to identify a middle way or resolution that helps improve performance and productivity.

When developing or identifying a suitable conflict management strategy, it's important for organizational leaders to examine several issues. First, organizational leaders or managers need to determine how the conflict can be brought out in the open in order to be dealt with. Secondly, these leaders must examine the best possible means for people to understand each other's perspective. Third, leaders should examine how trust can be developed in order for emerging conflicts to be more functional rather than dysfunctional. Fourth, leaders should identify how people with varying conflict resolution abilities can be used to teach others. These four considerations have always been used as the premise for determining a suitable conflict management strategy.

Apart from these vital considerations, conflict management in the workplace also entails several activities including problem solving, communication, handling emotions, and understanding people's positions. This wide range of activities is geared towards promoting healthy dialogue and ensuring positive interpersonal skills. Techniques that are commonly used to handle or resolve workplace conflicts are classified into two major categories i.e. integrative strategies and avoidance or distributive strategies.

Integrative Strategies for Conflict Management

Organizational leaders handle conflicts through integrative strategies, which are also known as social-oriented, collaborating, or problem-solving techniques. These strategies are used to initiate open communication, solve problems, or ensure information sharing when dealing with the conflict and afterwards (Singleton et al., 2011, p.153). There are several integrative strategies for managing conflict in the workplace including

Collaboration

One of the techniques that have commonly been used to manage conflicts in the working environment is collaboration. This is an integrative strategy since it focuses on promoting healthy relationships between organizational members or employees through resolving the underlying issue. Moreover, collaboration is an integrative strategy because it focuses on solving the problem. Collaboration involves working together to find a solution that will satisfy all parties or individuals involved in the conflict. Based on existing definitions and analysis, collaboration technique in conflict management can be described as cooperation with every party to express and listen to concerns with the aim of identifying a mutually satisfactory solution (Prause & Mujtaba, 2015, p.19). In most cases, this conflict management technique is described as a win-win approach since the views of each party in the conflict are taken into consideration during conflict resolution. The advantages of this integrative approach include the fact that it incorporates each party's wishes, widens the scope of usual solutions, and examines all ideas to develop a fresh outcome.

Brubaker et al. (2014), state that collaborative process and approaches to conflict resolution have become common in organizations or workplaces across the world, especially in North America (p.357). The most common collaborative approaches include coaching and mediation that are used to lessen the impacts of unresolved conflict on organizational performance and productivity. To achieve this goal, organizations, especially large organizations, have established an ombudsman who is tasked with the responsibility of identifying at least one conflict management approach that is suitable in handling an issue.

McAllum (2013) view collaboration as a participation-based conflict management system, which examines conflict from an interpersonal and intra- or inter-organizational perspective or level (p.53). The core of participation-based conflict management system such as collaboration is relationships and the belief that involvement generates personal, organizational, and societal benefits. Through participation-based system, conflict is resolved by creating a collaborative organizational culture that helps enhance an organization's operations and improve the quality of life of its employees or members. Conflicts are viewed as natural processes that require participation or collaboration instead of discrete episodes or events that emerge outside the organization's norms and processes.

Accommodating

The second integrative conflict resolution approach is accommodating, which is a problem solving technique that works when parties to a conflict cooperate well (Prause & Mujtaba, 2015, p.18). This approach to conflict resolution involves neglecting a person's concerns in favor of the concerns of others. When neglecting a person's concerns in favor of another's, one of the members in the conflict management process is an expert in the specific issue being examined. This expert provides the most suitable solution even if it contradicts a person's goals and desired outcomes.

Brubaker et al. (2014) considers accommodating as part of collaborative processes in conflict management since it primarily involves mediation by an expert or organizational ombudsman (p.357). The increased use of this conflict management technique has contributed to the growth of pre-mediation coaching. Through this coaching, mediators who act as experts during conflict resolution utilize coaching techniques to help parties prepare more deliberately for the entire process. To help the parties accommodate each other's concerns, the mediator helps them focus on desired outcomes, identify their specific concerns, and determine their response to difficult messages or information (Brubaker et al., 2014, p.357).

According to McAllum (2013), accommodating is a management-based system of conflict management in which conflicts are regarded as natural phenomenon (p.51). Management-based systems deal with workplace conflicts through encouraging involved parties to define their interactions and adapt to emerging situations. This helps in transforming conflict management in various ways such as widening conflict beyond legalistic discussions of personal rights in the working environment. In addition, the approach examines the interests of each party and deal with grievances, which in turn enables the parties to have more control over the final outcomes of the resolution process.

Compromising

The third integrative conflict management technique in today's working environment is compromising. Unlike accommodating, compromising involves considering each party's concerns and promoting cooperation through lowering demands. Through this strategy, each party reconsiders some aspects of their demands or concerns in order to help resolve the underlying issue amicably. As an integrative conflict management strategy, compromising contributes to partial satisfaction of both parties since each of them neglects one of their concerns or demands in favor of the other party (Prause & Mujtaba, 2015, p.18). However, this strategy may be disadvantageous in some cases because it sometimes resolves the conflict or the underlying issue temporarily.

Compromising is a management-based system because its main emphasis is to contribute to the mutual gain of all parties in the conflict. It helps resolve a conflict by enlisting a series of interest-based policies and processes that focus on the mutual benefits of both parties (Brubaker et al., 2013, p.51). This approach is management-based approach to resolving conflicts since it gives parties more control over the final outcome by enabling them to examine their grievances and give up some of their demands in favor of the other.

Distributive Strategies for Conflict Management

Distributive or avoidance strategies for conflict management in the working environment are approaches used for controlling, contending or dominating the conflict resolution process. These strategies are sometimes inactive since they entail non-confrontational ways to or withdrawal from handling the conflict or issue. Parties use these approaches to distract other from the underlying issue or to prevent communication that could help resolve the issue amicably and conclusively (Singleton et al., 2011, p.153). Distributive or avoidance strategies are sometimes regarded as law-based systems that may be ineffective in resolving the conflict issue. As law-based systems, distributive or avoidance strategies focus on individual rights in the workplace rather than the overall good of all parties involved. The emphasis of these conflict resolution mechanisms is the individual rights of the parties instead of the mutual gain or benefits of all parties. Some of the most common distributive or avoidance conflict resolution approaches include

Competing

The first approach to conflict management that is viewed as a distributive or avoidance approach is competing. This conflict management technique involves the pursuit of one's concerns and wishes at the expense of the interests of others. When competing is utilized to resolve/manage a conflict, one party enforces his/her desires and wishes through using formal power or authority (Prause & Mujtaba, 2015, p.18). This implies that the party acts in a more assertive way without collaborating with others.

The premise upon which the party enforces his/her desires and wishes is organizational policies and procedures. In such cases, these policies and processes are considered unfair because they do not promote collaboration or provide a means for the aggrieved party to express his/her concerns or wishes. Moreover, the strategy generates ethical dilemmas because one of the parties experience difficulties in resolving the issue in a manner that promotes cohesion among organizational members. Nonetheless, this approach is beneficial in emergency situations or conditions that are time-sensitive. This is primarily because such situations may not be favorable for integrative conflict management strategies.

Avoidance

The second distributive strategy for conflict management in the workplace is avoidance, which occurs when an individual does not pursue his/her own wishes as well as those of the other party in the conflict (Prause & Mujtaba, 2015, p.19). Avoidance is usually a non-confrontational, inactive way of handling a conflict since it involves withdrawal. This approach is largely characterized by low concern for self and low concern for others (Singleton et al., 2011, p.153). Avoidance usually takes place when one of the parties to a conflict does not want or refuses to engage in the resolution process. This is fueled by several factors include unwillingness to create any tension, inability to handle the conflict issue, lack of interest in the conflict, and hopes that the issue will pass by with time. Regardless of the underlying reason for using avoidance in conflict management, it's largely ineffective because it neither addresses the issue nor promotes organizational cohesion.

Analysis

As evidenced in the examined literature, workplace conflicts are inevitable because people are generally bound to have conflicts in every sphere of interaction or communication. While workplace conflicts are attributable to several factors, they usually emerge from interpersonal incompatibilities or differences between organizational members or stakeholders. These incompatibilities or differences that result in conflict include animosity, tension, and annoyance among organizational stakeholders (Bang & Park, 2015, p.716). Apart from interpersonal incompatibilities, workplace conflicts are brought by demographic factors such as gender, culture, and personality differences. These demographic factors are associated with increased changes in the modern working environment because of globalization. This essentially means that globalization contributes to increased workplace diversity, which in turn generates conflicts as individuals pursue their personal, professional, and organizational goals.