Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Power and conflict at work

What is conflict
Conflict can be a good thing as well as bad, depending on how you try to define it. Conflict occurs when two groups or individuals don't agree with the same thing, and they will debate or argue until the right solution appears. Companies try their best to minimise conflict as much as possible to keep the environment as friendly and happy as possible. However the reason why conflict can also be a good thing is because there is a chance to solve things carefully using the correct method, and everyone involved will get their chance to have a say. People get to be more creative and solve problems which will improve their communication skills as well as team work. (workhelp.org, 2009)

Conflict in group presentation
When I was doing my A-levels, I had to do a group presentation on "Motivation". There were five students altogether in the group and all the individuals were very open minded which meant that we all had different opinions and had lots of disagreements. As our teacher only gave the whole class one week to prepare all the presentations, the group was under a lot of pressure as we had other assignments to get on with for other subjects. The group had two major conflicts and the first one was that one of the group members decided not to turn up during our discussion meetings which meant that all the hard work was left for the four remaining students. This student didn't take part as much as the rest did and even though we asked her to participate and come up with some ideas, she would refuse and listen to her MP3 player. There was only one solution for this problem which was to confide the teacher about it. The teacher took immediate action and took the student off the group and she got a fail for that assignment. The second conflict that occur ed during this task was that when we were all preparing for the presentation, not everyone agreed to what they wanted to say during the presentation. This made it difficult for the group as we only had little time left, so one of the students made everyone sit down and discuss the problem carefully until everyone was happy with what they were doing. During the discussing process, everyone took part and gave their opinion which made it easier for us as a whole to come up with a conclusion and a solution to the problem.

Different sources of power
Reward power- when conflict occurs in an organisation, reward power is an aspect to minimise the conflict between the employee and the manager or supervisor. Rewards such as work recognition, pay rise, or more useful resources, will keep the employee happy and therefore conflict will get reduced. Conflicts often occurs when an employee is upset with something and doesn't agree with the situation or feel as if their not being rewarded for all the hard work they have put in to keep the business a success,and therefore proving them regular rewards will keep the employees satisfied.
Expert power- there are experts who have a better knowledge and understanding of a particular situation and therefore they have the expert power. For example a teacher has expert power, because they have a better understanding of what they are teaching the students. The students follow and listen to all the instructions and information the teachers provide them, which makes the students the followers of the expert.

Coercive power- some organisation's believe that being able to give their employees punishments is also some sort of power that the employer has. For example if a person works for a fashion company and there job is to organise a whole fashion event, but fails to complete certain tasks in time before the even starts, the manager can punish the employee by saying that they are not going to get promoted or get a bonus payment, which than leaves fear in the employee, and hopefully it pushes them to work harder and get all the tasks completed. (The negotiation academy 2009)

5 strategies that can be used to overcome conflict in an organisation
It is important for an organisation to try and minimise conflict as much as possible as it tends to de-motivate employees if the situation is not dealt with carefully. Below are five ways which could be used in an organisation to minimise conflict.
Clear goals and objectives- if employees are told what their goals and objectives are clearly, than they will be more motivated at work as they know what to do with their job. When these goals and objectives are set to the employees, it is important for the managers to give feedback to them so they know where they are currently working at. Giving regular feedback will minimise conflict, and achieving the objectives and set goals will also be much easier. (J.Mullins 2007) Having appraisal interviews every month or year will also reduce conflict between the employees and managers because it gives the managers the chance to give good positive as well as negative feedback to the employee. The manager can also give suggestions on how to improve their working skills and how to reach higher. If the employee has any doubts or questions which they want answered, during the appraisal interview is the chance for them get everything cleared out.
Non-monetary rewards- some employees tend to improve their performance when they get monetary rewards such as a bonus pay etc. However on the other hand, there are also employees who don't care about the money, but care more about their self respect and want to work in an environment where everyone is friendly and helpful. For example if an employee has worked hard throughout a whole week, and the manager praises them, and encourages them to do well, the employee will get motivated and conflict will also be reduced. However if an employee put all their effort into their work, and doesn't get anything in return, it will de-motivate them, and they will go to the manager with full of anger which could than cause more conflict between the staff. (101 rewards 2009)
Leadership and management- the leadership and management of an organisation could also lead to conflict, if thing aren't managed properly and fairly. It is important for a manager to show respect towards the people who work for him/her. If there is less respect and more bossing around, employees will end up building conflict with the manager, which will than affect work itself. A lot of employees would appreciate encouragement, trust, respect and a working environment where all the staff can work cooperatively. It would be a reasonable idea to form up teams, so the member of staff have people to talk to and solve problems with much easily. As problems will get sorted out straightaway, it will reduce major conflict which is better for the manager because it means that he/she don't have to deal with serious issues that could have occurred without the teams being formed. (Articlebase 2009)
Clear policies and procedures- if a company has a set of clear policies and procedures and are provided to current and new employees, it could reduce conflict because the staff are less likely to break the rules once they know the policies that the company holds. For example if an employee gets a disciplinary and doesn't know the cause of it, it will create conflict because they are going to think that they are getting punished for nothing and therefore will go straight to the manager and cause conflict with the manager. However if everyone within the organisation are fully aware of the policies and procedures, they know what they have to deal with if they get punished. (J.Mullins 2007)
Having access to reasonable technology- having access to technology will make things easier at work and people won't complain as much due to lack of technology. However conflict could occur if the employee are not taught how to use the pieces of technology properly and therefore it is important that the manager trains all the employees how to use all the pieces of technology as it is also part of the health and safety act.

Conflict between group of managers and how it was resolved
During the class lecture there was a group exercise where five students had to do a role play being different managers of a organisation. There was a Human resource manager, Marketing manager, Sales manager, Finance manager and a Store manager. As all of these managers have different roles, they had 15 minutes to discuss their current problem and come up with a solution of how to save 10% of the costs of the business or how to increase sales by 15%. During the meeting, conflict occurred between the managers as they all came up with different ideas on how to solve the problem. Each manager was suggesting things which suited their role the best which meant that they excluded other people's points of view. Most of the managers were trying to immediately get their points across and therefore interrupted a lot which increased the conflict between everyone. In the end the store manager made a comment saying that he couldn't attend to the next important meeting as he was going on holiday the week after and this increased tension because no one could afford to go on holiday during such an important crises. The human resource manager managed to reduce the conflict between the managers because he took everyone points of view into account and he gave everyone an equal opportunity to have their say. He also managed to come up with a good solution that everyone agreed with and therefore in the end they were all happy with the outcome of the meeting. The tense in the air was also reduced by some humour by some of the managers which made it easier for everyone to communicate with each other. What the managers could have to differently to reduce the conflict is give everyone a limited amount of time to have their say where no one can interrupt. During the meeting, they should have had something small to eat and drink like biscuits or water etc as it would have been much easier for them to concentrate.

Conclusion

Overall conflict can affect a lot of organisations but it can also be good for the employees and employers if the situation is dealt with carefully. Conflict allows an organisation to become a better place to work in because it allows people to build up their communcation skills when they are in tensed sitautions and it also allows them to talk things throught professionally and come up with a decent solution that suits everyone. However if a conflict is not dealth with immidiately, it could lead to a worse situation which will be hard to resolve and therefore could bring up a bad image for the business.





References
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