Conflict is toxic and unhealthy to your employers in the workplace, but it is inevitable. It can render your workers useless and unproductive for the day. And you know how this can affect the company. It could even get worse if a conflict arises between one of your employers and one of your customers. Like I said earlier, it is inevitable. How does one manage conflict in the easiest way possible to prevent it as it arises? As a business leader, you should undergo conflict management training. However, in this article, I will give you approaches to manage conflict in your workplace.
What is conflict and conflict management in the workplace?
According to the dictionary, conflict is a sharp disagreement or opposition of interests or ideas. One can describe workplace conflict as a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived resistance of needs, values, and interests among people working together or even customers.
Conflict management in the workplace is a process of resolving the dispute among workers in a workplace. It is a process where Negative issues are being reduced, with priority for positive results. Large companies give adequate conflict management training to their human resource managers.
However, conflict management training should not be focused on HR managers only. Workers should also be giving adequate help to learn the skills they need to handle conflict through helpful books or conflict management training.
Benefits of an effective conflict management training
Conflict management training is as good as any other training in the work area. The following are the benefits of better conflict management training.
1. Reduce cost and boost ROI
You wonder how resolving conflict reduces cost or boosts ROI. The simple truth is that conflict drains your workers’ energy, the company’s money, and even time. You could look at it like this, every time there is a conflict in your company, the parties involved would not concentrate on the job.
Besides, you will agree that you can use the hour spent resolving a dispute to achieve something productive and a better business decision. Employers will be able to handle conflict before it escalates into something big with better training. Furthermore, when there is peace in the firm, the rate at which workers resign is minimal, and you will spend less on recruitment and training costs.
2. Retain your top performers
Undoubtedly, good conflict management training improves interpersonal relationships in the workplace. That means your employees have a good rapport with each other within the company. Everybody sees each other as significant because of the way the conflict management training is structured. Top performers in your company will have little or no reason to leave as far as they earn their respects.
3. Manage risk
Conflict can put your company at so much risk when it has intensified into something beyond control. Aggression can lead to violence, destruction, and demolition amongst disgruntled staff. With better conflict management training, you have already curbed the risk.
Conflict management styles
When it comes to conflict management, there is no direct way to solve it. Every situation and everybody is different, so you need to understand your staff and determine what works for both parties. Remember that when resolving conflict, nobody has to be right or wrong. There are five proven approaches to resolving conflict, a model developed by Thomas-Kilmann. These approaches include avoiding, accommodating, compromising, competing, and collaborating.
Avoiding
Avoiding is a conflict management style that involves withdrawing or stepping aside for a conflict before it escalates. You can remove the concerned parties temporarily from the project they are conflicting over or resigned to other departments. For instance, when a party pretends nothing is wrong. The strategy gives people time to call down while the conflict has been resolved by a higher authority. However, if the method is used in a situation, it can cause hostility between the staff.
Accommodating
The accommodating style satisfies the other party’s wish at the expense of your own, just like allowing them to win to allow peace to reign. When you feel you are not too affected or don’t care much about the situation like the other party. For instance, if you think, prolonging issues is unnecessary and not worth your time and energy. You can let the matter slide and move on to important matters.
Compromising
This strategy involves finding an acceptable resolution that partially works for each party. The conflict management style is referred to as loss – loss because both parties will have to give up something to agree.
Competing
This style involves when a particular party tries to satisfy its desire at the expense of the other. The party stands firm on its decision until they have their way.
Collaborating
Collaborating tries to find a solution that satisfies both parties involved; It is a win-win for both parties.
Conclusion
Conflict management training is essential in the workplace. It will pay more if you invest in conflict management training.
