Components of managing workplace conflict
Question:
Discuss about the Employee relations in the organisational context.
Some of the indications and clues which may arise due to conflict in the workplace are:
- Decreasing productivity-If people will not cooperate with each other and will make more complaints then the productivity of the company will eventually decrease.
- Unpleasant environment-Less sociability and less communication will make the working environment unpleasant. The wrong comments of employees towards each other will also make the environment bad.
- No motivation-Less people will contribute to the team meetings and this will stop them to feel motivated and work effectively. Negativity will also supress new ideas and less volunteers(Daniels, 2013).
The four components which have to be managed to manage conflict are:
- Identify Factors- The first component to manage conflict is the factors which caused the conflict. Few of the factors which lead to conflict are clashing mentalities and personalities, disagreement, individual opinions, etc. Hence, above everything the factors should be identified and analysed.
- Emotion management-The few emotions which motivates conflict are anger and sadness. It is very necessary to manage the emotions as good management of emotions will help in reaching the respective goals. The management should be in a way that emotions work for you and not against you.
- Communication-Communication is a basic key to solve any kind of conflict.People involved in a conflict should sit and talk,listen to each other and then come out with a conclusion.
- Compromise- Any conflict is resolved only when any one or both of the parties compromise and keep aside their ego. Everyone is forced to come to a settlement whether done willingly or unwillingly. A person should keep this thing in mind that its not about winning and losing then only he will be able to compromise.
The various types of costs involved in recruitment are: Advertising and Marketing, Job Fairs, Travel Expenses for Candidates and Recruiting Staff, Referral Bonuses, Relocation Costs, Sign-On Bonuses, Background checks.
Few ways to manage goals to overcome conflict are:
- Analyse the points of agreement and disagreement- Discuss the areas of agreement and disagreement and then consult other people if they agree with your point of view or not. If not, then customise your point of view till everyone agrees on it.
- Being a neutral party talk through the situation-Never make a partial decision, whenever you are facing a conflict gain clarity from both the ends and if asked then make a wise decision. Also, discuss with few people whether according to them you have properly handled the situation or not.
- Take conflict as an opportunity-If taken positively every conflict is a learning opportunity. So, if you are at the disagreement part then there is a chance of growth and development and you will learn many new things(Aylott, 2014).
To collaborate with managers in other sections to determine future human resources needs are,
- Conduct proper meetings-Regular meetings should be conducted and the needs as well as the requirements should be discussed.
- Take feedbacks- Take proper feedbacks from other sections ask whether the needs are getting fulfilled or not.
- Give ideas- Whenever there is any requirement give new ideas and implement them to fulfil it.
The position description is the job description which represents the positions on which applicants can apply. Position description analysis is the proper analysis of the job on which you are going to apply. Few steps involved are:
- Search for a job in which you are interested-From the position descriptor search the job which matches your skills and the ones in which you are interested.
- Analyse and classify the skills which are necessary for that job-Look for the key terms and the skills which are necessary for the job to get a clear understanding of the job profile.
- On the identified skills judge your experience and capabilities whether you have those skills or not.
Whenever advertising a position the basic thing to follow is that there should be equal employment opportunity irrespective of the race, colour, gender, religion, etc. Apart from this the advertisements should have all the information like,
- The job title along with the areas of specialization(this is the mandatory requirement)
- A brief description of the position and the responsibilities involved along with a notification of job type.
- The qualification creation and the salary range should be mentioned.
- The opening and closing dates of the applications should be highlighted.
- Place of the interview along with the documents needed at that time should be included(Aylott, 2014).
The relevant legislations that are necessary when preparing advertisements are;
- Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cwlth) – This Act focuses to remove the dominance of the award system and lets flexibility in employment.
- Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cwlth) – The discrimination based on race, colour, national or ethnic origin and immigration is banned by this act.
- Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cwlth) – This Act prevents discrimination of mental or physical impairment. It is mandatory for the employers to give ‘reasonable accommodation’ if the employee is disabled.
- Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cwlth) – According to this act, their should be any sexual harassment or discrimination on the basis of gender, marital status and pregnancy.
- Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 (Cwlth) – This commission examines the legislation for breaches of human rights which is taken care by the Commonwealth.
6.Equal Opportunity Act 1995 (Vic) – The goal of this act is to advertise recognition and acceptance of everyone’s right to equality of opportunity; It also eliminated discrimination against people by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of attributes and various areas of public life, such as age, sexual preference, religion and disability. Along with this, it reduces sexual harassment and provide redress for people who have been discriminated against or sexually harassed (Daniels, 2013).
Open Probes seek further detail and encourage the candidate to expand on an answer. They are usually triggered by a response given to an open question. e.g. “You mentioned that you weren’t happy with the way the customer spoke to you. What actually happened?” The key words that will help you to assemble an open probe include:
- WHY “Why do you think it happened?”
- WHO “Who takes responsibility for this system?”
- WHERE “Where did it begin?”
- HOW “How has the system been working?”
- WHAT “What operations are conducted in this office?”
- WHEN “When did you begin to notice the problem?”
- TELL “Tell me a little about your responsibilities.”
There are various types of questions, which are used in an interview. They are:
- Credential Questions-These questions are also called as resume verification questions. The aim of these questions is to verify the knowledge of the background. For example, “How well did you do in your major classes?” or “What is/was your percentage?”
- Technical Questions-These questions are basically specific to the role the candidate has applied for. The aim of these questions is to judge the candidates for any technical jobs. For example, brain teaser questions or reasoning questions.
- Experience based Questions-These types of questions are related to your experience by which the interviewer assesses the features of your background. For example, “What did you learn in that class?” or “Have you done this type of work before?”
- Situational (Hypothetical) Questions-These questions are hypothetical job-related situation which target on applicable qualification. For example, “You are giving a presentation. One member of the audience is continually stopping you and diverting you from the main part of the presentation. What would you do?”
- Opinion Based Questions-The aim of these questions is to judge how you would react in certain scenarios. For example, “What would you do in this kind of situation?” or “What are your strengths and weaknesses?”
- Behavioural Descriptive Interviewing Questions-These questions are of high predictive effectiveness. The aim of these questions is to measure the past behaviours in accordance of future results. For example, “What were the steps you followed to accomplish the task?” or “When have you had to use quick thinking to solve a potentially serious problem?”
There are many different tests that can be used in staff selection some of them are,
- Aptitude and ability tests-These types of questions are multiple choice questions and divided into many types. For example, Verbal ability questions, numerical questions, reasoning questions, etc.
- Personality tests- These tests measures characteristics which are related to the behaviour of a person at workplace and their interpersonal interactions. These tests judge whether an individual have ability to be successful in job or not(Aylott, 2014).
Some of the examples of typical questions asked when employers do a reference check are,
- When did the candidate work for your company? Can you confirm the starting and ending employment dates? When did the employee leave the company?
- Can you describe the candidates’ experience working as a member of a team?
- What sort of duties and responsibilities were assigned to the candidate? Did the candidate complete then satisfactorily?
- Determine the candidate’s advancement in the company; did he or she receive any promotions or demotions, or did she remain in the same role throughout her tenure?
- Is there anything else I should take into consideration before I hire this candidate?
Few of the points to discuss with the candidate when offering the job are:
- Future scope-The candidate thinks that this job will make sense from his career development standpoint.
- Money-The candidate is satisfied with the compensation made on the offered salary or not.
- Atmosphere-Will it be easy for the candidate to adapt with the working atmosphere or not.
The best practices to follow when notifying unsuccessful candidates are;
- Be honest-As soon as the results are out, notify the unsuccessful candidates in a polite way do not keep them waiting.
- Give feedback- Provide the candidate with the feedback so that he can improve himself and get another job offer. This will give the candidate a sense of motivation and positivity. They can easily include the constructive feedback in their skill set.
- Provide feedbacks with the help of examples and point out the mistakes they made, and explain the right ways in which these mistakes can be corrected(Daniels, 2013).
The information the letter of appointment should contain from a successful candidate is,
- The job title and the joining date
- The salary annexure and benefits
- Details of employment contract
- Details of legal activities like background check and document verification
- Declaration of the candidate
The line manager delegates different tasks to different departments like,
- Marketing-The marketing team will be responsible for advertising the job and inviting candidates.
- HR-The HR department will be responsible for conducting interviews of the shortlisted candidates.
- Training and development-This team will be responsible to carry out the training programs of the selected candidates and provide feedback to the line manager based on their performance.
The process of brief description of the job role to the new employees of the company is known as induction programme.
A typical induction program will include the following things,
- A brief introduction of the company
- The legal terms and conditions of the employment
- Introduction with the colleagues
- Legal Health and safety policies of the company
- The management of probation employees is important because if they are not working properly it’s better to terminate them rather than wasting resources on them. If proper feedback is provided employees work more efficiently and they get to know their mistakes and ultimately they improve them.
- The feedback is provided by the manager regularly. Each company has a particular time ;period for formal feedback in which the performance of the employee is analysed and then the higher authorities measures criteria’s like quality and quantity of work along with work ethic and behaviour and then makes the employment confirmed or terminated.
- The indicators of an effective induction program includes a supervisor or a manager, the new staff members participating actively, adapting the needs of the new employees along with a brief review of the induction process.
The importance of developing, regularly reviewing and updating individual and team development plans is as follows,
- The development of these plans motivates individuals and polish up their skills and hence they perform better.
- If the plans will be reviewed regularly then it will be easy to determine the flaws and the negative points. Along with this, people will contribute more and new ideas will be discussed.
- The plans should be updated regularly based on the reviews new points can be added and measures can be taken on the areas which are not working well.
- The plan helps in extracting the best employees and they grow not only professionally but also personally.
The two ways to give constructive feedback are:
- Be specific about your observation- Briefly explain what you observed personally and provide suggestions to change the bad things positively. And make sure to tell the exact scenario where they made the mistake so that they get their mistake.
- Be positive and give specific suggestions-Along with the negative feedback include few of the positive points so that the candidate takes it as a learning opportunity rather than feeling criticized. Give different and innovative suggestions to the candidate so that he can improve on those skill sets.
The employees should regularly receive constructive feedback on their performance so that they understand their mistakes and work accordingly.
- The manager should schedule regular one-on-one feedback sessions monthly with all the employees. So, that they feel motivated and understand the problems and hence productivity will increase.
- If the performance of employees is not good then these feedback sessions should held on a regular basis this will inspire the employees.
The best practices for managing the employees at the probationary period are:
- Set a target and then give feedbacks-Set targets for the employees and then analyse who meets the targets and who don’t. Then conduct regular meeting to provide feedback to each and every employee.
- Determine problems-Regular meetings to analyse the problems should be organised. These meetings should discuss the problems of each and every employee whether it’s an individual issue or an organisation related issue.
- Provide ample of opportunities- If the employees gets more opportunities they understand the work more easily and hence they ask more problems and gets more solutions.
References
Aylott, E. (2014). Employee Relations. USA: Kogan Page Limited.
Daniels, K. (2013). Employee relations in an organisational context. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House.
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