DIFFERENCE OF OPINION often termed as conflict are inevitable as they are bound to happen when we have a team of people working for the common objectives. This difference of opinions may arise from the way we look at the things or say individual approach towards the happenings around us. Workplace disagreements or conflicts are bad and they need to be resolved at the priority Handling conflicts at workplace to ensure smooth functioning of the organisation as well as garnering the optimum productivity in any given process.
Defining the resolution process of such conflicts one need to be assured of striking a perfect balance between both the parties at such a conflict ,without harming personal and emotional well being and long term applicability of the resolution. So with modern applicability of the management there are two opinions about the conflicts, the traditional approach and the modern approach
OFTEN conflicts were considered bad as they spoiled the work harmony , work flow and were major resistant in productivity, the traditional approach was to ascertain the conflicts need to be resolved immediately and decisions were often biased to maintain the hierarchy levels or superiority. This sort of traditional approach was primarily based on the productivity, not to blame the management thought process of those times as there were limited resources on human capital development and internal work and quality audits and literally nonexistent employee grievance procedures. Other evident reason was the job work was more laborious and less technical, it involved less technical expertise and anyone with few days of training was compatible enough to be hands on with the responsibility execution. So primarily the decisions in resolving the conflict were taken on the behest of the populist approach that is acceptability to the larger section of the company.
MODERN APPROACH on the other hand was in sync of the growing employee participation in management and need to retain the best talent, rather to add on it was based on the principle of improvisation of the company work culture and ethics. Decision are made with more diligence to ensure better work environments rather than the populist approach. Key indicators which are considered in modern approach to resolve the employee conflicts can we illustrated as below
The first and foremost approach to administer the conflict management is ensuring the transparent management approach where in everyone in the company has right to put forward his point of view and is made aware of the decision making process. This itself serves as biggest management asset as it develops the atmosphere of non competence in between the employees often leading to conflicts. Equal hearing need to be given to all the parties involved in the conflict without prejudice and management need to possess a quality of hearing first rather than jumping to conclusions
Element of compromise or retraction is a situation when one or more parties to the conflict agrees to compromise on the situation or retracts from the situation, this can be developed with empathy and calm hearing and assurances of improving the conditions to conflict in future. It’s a idle path of the resolving the conflict as both the parties retract to certain points and cannot last long as parties to conflict often feel loosing something are not satisfied with the resolution.
ALTERNATIVES to the situation of conflict can be exercised by the management addressing the situation; using force of the authorities embedded to them they can resolute by forcing their opinion or rules laid as per the organizational SOP’s. these sort of resolution may end up one party at win and other at losing side but in long term applies the principle of management assertiveness in biding the organisation in accordance to the laid down procedures and rules. It also provides the cooling off period to the parties at conflict which later can assist in better resolutions.
Cooling off period also assist the management to address the atmosphere of apprehension, competence and distrust and provide time to set the atmosphere right and apply change management.
Internal intelligence is one of the biggest advantage to any organisation who has it in practice and leads to effective peoples management , as it gives the inputs of right and wrong leading to effective decision making , the organisation should make the best efforts to establish the right atmosphere in the organisation as it motivates the large part of employees to fair and transparent management with equal opportunities.
STEPS TO EFFECTIVE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
