Symptoms of Conflicts and Disputes
Managing conflicts at work has been an increasing challenge for employees. As per the employee’s feedback, it actually hampers the performance at workplace. Most of the time, high number of claims at the workplace create problem in getting proper productivity. If the business does not handle the conflict between employees, managers or the business partners, the organization could face the difficulties in generating proper profit. It can affect the business. It has been seen that most of the employee performance problem starts from the conflicts at the workplace. In this context, the researcher has discussed the managing conflicts and disputes at the organization called The Australian Academy of Business. TAAB provides standard business training and education to the students. Moreover, the business school offers a range of business, business administration, management and financial services course (TAAB 2016).
The symptoms of the conflicts may be visible at workplace. Sometime, the individual might hide his idea at the workplace. Some symptoms of the conflicts are provided below:
The managers provide little input in the team meeting. The employees always expect to be motivated by his manager or the higher authority (Pinder 2014). When the employees take new task, the manager should motivate him to get proper outcome. If the business does not motivate any employee for his good work, he can be de-motivated and it draws a negative impact on his performance (Cederroth and Hassan 2012). The manager must recognize the best performer so that he could not build any conflicts on management decision.
The employees become less interested about their job role. Some employees could behave rudely with the higher authority of the organization (Moran et al. 2014). Behavior change is a big concern in the worlplace as the normal environment is hampered. If an employee gets de-motivated in the organization, he would not provide good performance and hence, it could create a negative impact on the business (Church 2012). The business could lose their workforce to accomplish a particular objective.
Employee’s conflicts and disputes are responsible for the less productivity in the organization. Employees do not bother about the growth of the business (Mitchell 2013). They conflict with others to establish their individual statement. In a competitive market, any organization tries to enhance its brand image in the market so that the business could be expanded in the large demographic (Condliffe 2012). Therefore, the productivity fall could prevent the growth of the organization. Internal conflicts and issues must be discussed to get the better outcome of the business.
Unhappiness may be a cause to increase sickness absence in the organization. It might prevent the organization to expand business in large demographic and the entire productivity become decreased (Cummings and Worley 2014). In this context, the organization, TAAB follows their policies to reduce conflicts. As per PP008, the organization collects the feedback from the students and clients to ensure that their services are satisfactory and meet the expectation. If there are some conflicts among the clients or students in the organization, the management of TAAB could understand the possible reason by accumulating personal feedbacks and experiences (TAAB 2016).
Causes of Conflict and Disputes
There are some issues that can cause conflicts and issues in the organization. The possible causes are such as below:
- Unfair treatment
- Poor management
- Unclear job responsibilities
- Improper training
- Poor communication
- Poor environment at work
- Lack of opportunities
- Bullying and harassment
In this context, The Australian Academy of Business offer an excellent learning experience to the students sop that they could inspire them to graduate and be the best at their field. The organization always focuses on some values to reduce the conflicts and disputes at the work place (Sallis 2014). Their core values include integrity, competence, commitment, respect and the excellence. Through the engagement of following certain values, the organization has reduced the conflicts and disputes at the workplace.
Strong management:
The organization must have the strong management so that the employees could understand the code of conducts properly. Without having the focus, the line managers would not be able to reduce the issue sin the organization (Demirbas and Yukhanaev 2012). Therefore, the line managers need to follow some guidelines such as follow:
- Intervening quickly in cases of conflict
- Dealing with conflict heads on
- Dealing with issues
In this case scenario, the organization, TAAB follows the continuous improvement and management report policy to set a planned process that facilitates TAAB to systematically review and improve its policies (TAAB 2016).
Healthy conflicts suggest the process of sharing different ideas and feedback to each other at the workplace (Slaikeu and Hasson 2012). It enhances the business growth in the market. The employee’s new idea could facilitate the organization to improve their existing process (Fishe and Huberlee 2012). The management needs to collect the feedback and work experiences from the employees to increase the productivity of the business. In this scenario, The Australian Academy of Business uses the PP008 policy, which says that the organization collects feedback from the client. It facilitates them to ensure whether they are capable of providing enhanced quality services to the clients and students or not.
The higher management needs to control the bullying in the organization. This could affect the performance of the employee. When some serious incident like bullying happen, the management must be dealt with seriously (Gupta and Shaw 2014). The negligence could make a negative impact of the harassed employee and his performance level could be downgraded. The managers should inform all staffs that the unsubstantiated rumor would not be entertained at the workplace. Prevention of bullying is necessary to maintain healthy relation at the workplace (Ibrahim and AlFalasi 2014).
Open communication allows the organization to maintain transparency into their work system. Many organizations have been following this strategy to make healthy relation with the employees (Loretto et al. 2013). Through the engagement of this process, an employee could share his feedback or work-information to the higher authority. Therefore, an organization like TAAB could be able to manage the conflicts and disputes at the workplace.
The organization must follow a guideline through which they could provide the better service to the clients. Moreover, the employees and other staff of the business should follow those guidelines. They must be agreed with the company’s policies so that the disputes can be reduced at the workplace.
In this scenario, The Australian Academy of Business has been following their policies to manage the conflicts and disputes. For example, some of their policies are given below:
- PP007 the access and equity policy
- PP012 Students record and information safeguard policy
- PP017 Workplace healthy and safety policy
- PP018 Rehabilitation policy
- PP019 Harassment and Discrimination policy
- PP 020 Disciplinary Policy
- PP032 code of practice policy
The business school follows theses policies in order to managing the conflicts and disputes at the workplace. Their aim is to provide modern learning session to the students and clients so that they could explore their knowledge at the workplace. As per the harassment and discrimination policy, the organization provides a work environment for all employees, contractor and partners that respect their view and idea (TAAB 2016).
Conclusion:
It can be summed up that the employees should get the opportunity to share their idea and experience at the work place. It is very important task for the organization to manage conflicts and disputes for getting better productivity. Without developing the policies and guidelines, the business could not maintain the healthy atmosphere at the work place. The management of the business must follow their guidelines to reduce the conflicts and disputes. In this context, The Australian Academy of Business follows several policies to manage the conflicts and disputes in the institute.
References
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Condliffe, P., 2012. Conflict Management: a practical guide. LexisNexis Butterworths.
Cummings, T. and Worley, C., 2014. Organization development and change. Cengage learning.
Demirbas, D. and Yukhanaev, A. 2012. Independence of board of directors, employee relation and harmonisation of corporate governance. Employee Relations, 33(4), pp.444-471.
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Gupta, N. and Shaw, J.D., 2014. Employee compensation: The neglected area of HRM research. Human Resource Management Review, 24(1), pp.1-4
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Moran, R.T., Abramson, N.R. and Moran, S.V., 2014. Managing cultural differences. Routledge.
Pinder, C.C., 2014. Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press.
Sallis, E., 2014. Total quality management in education. Routledge.
Slaikeu, K.A. and Hasson, R.H., 2012. Controlling the costs of conflict: How to design a system for your organization. John Wiley & Sons.
TAAB 2016. Blog Australian business blogs [online] Taab.com.au. Available at: https://www.taab.com.au/ [Accessed on 5 Mar. 2016]