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Understanding Conflicts at Workplace

Life at Work

Published on: Dec 04, 2020

Conflict is not same as is ‘Quarrel’ or fight but they are simply differences in opinions, goals, ideas, ideologies and line of action.

Conflicts put a wide impact on the functioning of a team. To handle conflicts in a creative manner, we first need to understand what causes them. Generally speaking, there are four primary reasons that cause conflict. These are as follows:

Communication

Communication is a key for the development of team. Communication comprises of discussing issues, doubts, advice related to work. A Team is a company’s asset that needs to be kept under regular check. Fixing problem regarding work culture, tasks, personal issues helps in reducing stress level. Face to face communication, weekly staff meetings, evaluation according to performance irrespective of personal issues manifests growth of the employee in the organization.

Exchange of ideas about projects and tasks is a vital tool in organization’s machinery. Poor communication or half information hampers productivity, moral and interest of employee.

Also, communication is an essential element in employee retention.

Competitiveness

Every individual has different potential, abilities and skills to present themselves in the dynamic corporate environment. The unbiased decision of manager ignites competitive feelings among employees.

On the bases of Deutsch (1973) and Coltri (2004) studies, Hafeez (2005) developed two

Cycles: Competition cycle of conflict and Cooperation cycle of conflict.

‘Competition cycle’ describes the internal dynamics of competitive conflict. Competitive conflict occurs when one party feels more powerful than others in performing tasks. There are two kinds of conflicts that prominently take place in competitive cycle. One is perceived and other is felt conflict. The outcome of competition with other party results in low productivity.

Challenges

Working in a tense environment brings greater challenges and risks for management. Challenges include lack of transparency, mutual trust, undefined goals and improper timings. If the team members work in isolation, there is a high chance of involvement in conflicts as decision and work efficiency may differ. For the attainment of organizational goals, every team member engagement in work matters.

Changes

Change is omnipresent and it’s necessary for everybody’s growth. A good team manager prepares employees to perform in dynamic workplace. Every individual’s goals, views, ideas and perception differ in performing task. Hence, sometimes it creates nuisance related to work as conflicts may arise due to difference in individual timings of work. Some employees might not feel comfortable working in dynamic conditions. Rigidity gives birth to monotonous brains and may turn into conflicts.

Conclusion

From the above points, one thing is clear that small mole is always hard to break. In same way, there are always a small issues and conflicts that needs immediate and proper attention.

To make HR’s works easy, Runtime HRMS addresses some of the common conflict causing reasons.

Celia, Virtual Assistant

Celia is an artificial assistant built by Runtime HRMS based on large language model.