Conceptual Framework
Organizations are made up of employers, employees, and trade unions that are always in constant interaction. The interaction among the stakeholders always differs in every organization depending on the number of employees, the management structure rules and regulations among other factors. In this organization, there is an unfortunate relationship between employees and the companies as most of the employees tend to suffer without proper grievance approach. It is observable that the number of grievances has risen from 12 to 28 and staff turnover rising to 15% in the same month. This is a proof that many staffs are not satisfied with working conditions and conflict resolutions process: as the line managers who should be at the forefront in connecting the teams with the senior managers are performance oriented.
The organizational poses flat organizational hierarchy that poses many challenges to the employees, as the few managers are unable to handle the large number of employees the organizational structure force many employees to live since, in such a structure, those who have a long history are always preferred irrespective of the performance(Koohborfaruhaghighi & Attmam 2017,p.48). Such structures always pose employees to feel de-motivated as there is always no room for the employees to move up in the management level hence leading to the high level of employee turnover (Rehman & Mubasshar 2017, p.62). The flat structure also confuses leadership that results into a large number of conflicts as a large number of managers tend to provide different conflict instructions the employees.
A conceptual model is an analytical tool that is composed of concepts used by several organizations to understand a situation. The conceptual models that are available in most organizations relate with the workers unions in many cases.
Workers unions help employees in solving their issues through collective bargaining arrangements. For example an employee may tend to objects a disciplinary case and turn back to the unions to help in solving the issues with the management. Workers unions help also in creating divisiveness’ resulting into higher wages for members.
Every organization is formed to achieve particular goals through the use of various individuals of different backgrounds. These different backgrounds and poor relationship between employees and management team always results in different behavioral problems among the employees that call the company and the human resource manager to address grievance and disciplinary cases constantly (Crescenzi et al. 2011, p346).These approaches include unitary, populist, Marxist, and feminists.
Major Conflict Resolution Approaches
The unitary approach tends to recognize that every work in an organization are integrated and exists in a harmonious form for the common good (Zubair & Kamal 2016, p.430). The approach focus on the co-dependency of staffs and the company whereby each worker identifies with the organization’s goals and mission leading to mutual relations since what is good for the organization is also good for the employees (Stout & Salm 2011). The approach ensures that the management and the employees share common purpose set on common values, interests, and goals thus demanding employees’ loyalty to the management team.
The Marxist approach is a broader scope that emphasizes on the impotence of collective bargaining in an organization explained in the condition of mobilization theory(Parthasarathy 2015,p.820). The Marxist believes that in every change, results in same societal change and therefore, industrial relations should encompass social, economic, and political terms leading to the capitalist system (Donmez & Sulton 2016, p.689).
Pluralism approach suggests that in every organization, there are multiple parties entailed in the decision-making process and perceives conflicts and grievances as a normal and inevitable occurrence. The approach requires proper management of these grievances about the group diversity, interest, motivations, and objectives (Schestzer 2017, p.158).
From the above explorations of different types of conflict resolution models, the company should apply pluralism approach(Gharaibeh 2013, p.1064).The significant amount of employees leads to unfair treatment that is not always resolved by their leaders, thus coming together as one in a union is a better choice for championing for their rights.
In an institution with a large number of employees of about 800 staffs, the human resource management should be well established to have the capability of handling the employee’s issues. Delegating the duty to the line managers tend to create power confusion as the available 30 line managers tend to offer different rules that might lead to conflict. These conflicts are not always possible to e resolved by a large number of the line managers hence leading to high rate of the resignation of employees. Adapting pluralism will ensure that no employee has more power than others in the company, and the union will also ensure that both employees and employers adhere to the rules and regulations of the employment.
The first reason why the company should promote employee pluralism in their conflict management is theta diffused power among the union and the management. Employment relationship in a pluralist organization entails individuals with diverse aims of aspirations that when they don’t meet their needs such as in this company, they tend to resign leading to the high employee turnover. The low, poor response to employees’ issues by the management shows lack of employee concern by the management; hence the union can only champion the employee’s interest
The Best Approach to Address Grievances by the Company
Dispute and grievances resolutions are very critical to every organization. Different approaches and models are used by various organizations to bring harmony among employees and the employers, among the models include:
Conversation refers to the process of exchanging ideas. The courageous conversation model entails the exchange of ideas between two conflicting parties that have moved from the comfortable debate .employees that have always been mistreated and at the same time suppressed by the authority always tend to follow this model of conflict resolution (Bingnam& Duran 2014, p.81). The model use 3Es to manage conflicts: that are explain the gap a situation whereby the parties bring all the issue to the table to be deliberated. Explore the gap is a phase of conversation n that entails the conflict resolution officer or manager asking the conflicting parties some few questions to clarify unclear points and final the eliminate the gap that a clear Conesus is reached with the two conflicting parties.
Other people’s hoes models is a technique that entails of an individual pointing out a person theta they have been in conflict with and to whom they would wish to respond to. The model is divided into four positions that are self-position, others position, neutral position, and reflection position.
The conflict between people model aims at encouraging employees to work through a step by step to managing conflicts. The conflict between people model has some similarity with” other people’s shoe model” of looking at on perspective and the other person perspective with the aim of making the conflicting parties see how breaking the cycle needs to change from one person regardless of where the fault was started.
Employee voice is the process by which employees given the chances to air their views during the grievances resolution time. Research shows that using employee voice has always been effective as the managers always gain greater trust (Yanfei, Yangliu & Yu 2018,p.315). The two-way communication between employees and management results into a positive job satisfaction since the disputants are directly involved in conflict resolution; the disputants have access to indirect voice mechanism and the contribution to the decision making. Line managers have frequent interaction with employees since they act as supervisor however, line managers are unable to perform conflict resolution unless the organization restructures itself . The restructuring of the organization to allow the line managers have the power to resolve resolutions include the empowering of the line managers by the HRD through delegation responsibility from the HRD.
Business organizations across the world have always employed the Managerial Grid that encompasses both the production and the employee’s concerns. The Managerial Grid assumes on the principles that employee’s interests subordinated to the production demands and authority, and in case of a clash between bureaucratic requirements and personalized needs, and then the management model tilts in favor of efficiency.
The high level of engagement between employees and the line managers tend to mold the social system of the organization thus fostering positive citizenship behaviors. The citizenship behavior requires employees to view their carrier advancement as being intertwined with the success of the organization. The social system makes employees have a mutual understanding and be able to help one another in their day-to-day operations.
Line managers should be trained to attain problem-solving skills to act as mediators in case of conflicts. Line managers need the ability to survey all the possible solutions to problems and act in a manner that assures trust to the conflicting parties (Tappura, Syyanen & Saarda 2014, p.40). With the unavailability of these skills, line managers might not be able to control and offer conflict resolutions even if they are committed to doing so. The rise of the conflicts reports in the organization results from the poor conflict management by line managers. In most cases, line managers always ignore the employee’s issues as they tend to focus on the organization’s performance, forgetting that employees are the basis of the production. Therefore, training the line managers should have mediation skills to enable them to deal with such cases.
In current organizations, line manager’s plays major roles in implementing organizational HR policies. The elevation of the line managers to the roles of human resource functions resulted from the growing influence of the business partner’s model of people management, with the aim of making the HRM get closer to the main decision-making areas. The role of line managers in disputes resolutions is effective as they act as coaches and mentors of employees (Erbc 2017, p.43). The interaction of the line managers and employees help in identifying the moods of the employees through “sense-making activity.” The senses making activity is an approach used to evaluate the strengths and weakness of the employees in an organization through two steps. The first step is identifying those activities and process that encourage trust and corporation at the workplaces. The other one is creating effective interventions to stave off conflicts.
The organizational can also employ the evidence-based management through the use of line managers to curb and managing conflicts within. The model entails the collection of data and metrics about human resource practices among the employees to assess the effectiveness of the employed strategies. Through the survey carried out by the line managers, the company is capable of identifying the major causes of conflict and then address them appropriately.
The alternative dispute resolution (ADR) denotes to the process and mechanisms of conflict resolution that provide alternative either to litigation or resort administrative tribunals established under statute in such as equal opportunities and employment discriminations(Scanlon, Saenz & Kelly 2018,p.71). ADR currently used as an approach for managing conflicts within organizations based on a mechanism such “interest-based bargaining.” Line managers are always in a position to determine unfolding events to have a quick response to the looming potential problem, thus prevent the conflict by mentoring and, coaching employees.
Problem solving skills are essential components for building a sustainable business organization. Unresolved problems result in reduced productivity of the employees that eventually shift into the whole organization (King & Wright 2016). In most of the organizations, line managers always pose the best person in managing conflict dye to the daily interaction with employees. However, most of these line managers lack knowledge and skills in helping to combat conflicts. The following are knowledge and skills that can be recommended for the conflict management in an organization.
Team building tends to bring employees together by creating a strong bond between employees. Since the line managers focus on day-to-day people’s activities, they are expected to have the team building skills (Yan, Baiyin & Lin 2017, p.652). Team building process tends to improve employees trust the line managers who are always the source of information. Such employees tend to have more trust on the line managers words more than the senior managers. Team building helps in enhancing communication making the team member have a happy working environment that eventually reduced conflicts among employees.
Line managers are required to poses coaching skills to deal with individuals with conflicting issues, to maintain harmony within the team. Managing other people uncertainty is essential as it helps in detecting the unforeseen conflict and addressing it in appropriate way possible before it turns into a worse situation.
Personal resilience is very crucial for the line managers as it helps it holding up the team members during drastic changes such as cost-reduction. In such variations, many employees tend to have difficulty in updating them as a result of added job quantity against regular payment. Thus it is upon the line manager to have the ability to withstand and move on more than the team members.
The changing diversity of employees of most organizations leads to high rate of conflicts that arises among the employees and between the employees and employers. These conflicts result in a high rate of employee turnover if not well addressed like in the above organization. The following are recommendations suitable for reducing the high price of conflicts and employees turnover:
The first recommendation is that the company and the concerned conflict resolution personnel should use useful negotiation skills that will ensure a win-win result. Such strategies make employees feel that their needs and feelings are well considered by the company, thus motivating them and even causing them to trust the management by their concerns as there will be fair address.
The second recommendation is always to acknowledge complain or pain before addressing the issue as much as it might sound counterintuitive. The ability by the managers to offer employees opportunities to vent their frustrations helps in reducing the probability of conflicts within. Many disputes that arise as a result of unfair treatment might get to worse situations when the conflict resolution officer immediately dismiss the frustrated employee, however, when given an opportunity to air out a grievance, the degree of conflict might reduce as the employee gets the assurance of proper address of the problems. The company and the concerned conflict resolution personally to try and get to the core problem, either by chunking down or chunking up. Conflict among employees always has a broad network and therefore requires proper understanding of the cause to offer the best practical way that will protect the company’s face and the interest of the employees.
The third recommendation the organizational should restructure itself to have a hierarchical organizational structure that will create a room for the advancement of employees. With different leadership positions, employees feel motivated to work hard to be considered during the internal recruitment. With such adoption, the employee turnover will reduce. Secondly, the restructuring will produce more leadership positions that will enable the company in addressing various conflicts that arise among the employees and between the employers and company.
Conclusion
Conflicts are inevitable in most of the organizations; however proper management tends to reduce the level of conflicts among different people from different background. Different organizations apply different models in conflicts resolution procedures such as pluralism, unitary, maxims, and feminism. The pluralism approach suggests that organization tend to have multiple parties entailed in the decision-making process. The model perceives conflicts and grievances as a reasonable and inevitable occurrence.
The plan requires proper management of these grievances about the group diversity, interest, motivations, and objectives. The Unitary approach tends states that every work in an organization are integrated and exists in a musical form for the common good. The Marxist approach is a broader scope that emphasizes on the impotence of collective bargaining in an organization explained in the condition of mobilization theory.As much as it is critical to have established systems for conflict resolution in an organization, line managers, senior managers and even employees are required to have different skills and approaches of solving the conflicts more amicably.
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