Workplace Conflicts Among Employees

Workplace Conflicts Among Employees

1. Literature Review

This paper seeks to understand why workplace conflicts take place among employees among themselves, with their supervisors, or the management of the company. A brief introduction is provided as to the importance of this particular human resource issue and why it has been plaguing the modern world in recent times. It is then followed by the main research topics. Three objectives of the research topic has been analysed and shown the relation between them and how it can cause workplace conflicts. Firstly, is the personality difference of employees. Here it is detailed how the different elements of every employee’s personality can cause conflicts.  Secondly, is the conflict of interests. In this case, the personal benefits and other work that clashes with the work culture of the organisation are analysed. And thirdly, is the poor communication among these employees. Here, the reasons behind the poor communication are carefully scrutinised and evaluated to form an understanding of why this conflict may happen. Finally, the research topic has been concluded with some generic suggestions as to how to prevent these conflicts from arising on a regular basis. These include management understanding, and teambuilding workshops among employees to ensure that there is a healthy bonding between all workers, both at employee and management level.

1. INTRODUCTION

Conflicts are normal in work environments as employees tend to spend the larger part of the day with their colleagues. One of the most common human resource issues in most workplaces is the employee conflicts, either among themselves or with the management. This could be due to several factors which can include personality differences as well as personal values. To ensure that all conflicts are resolved, it is essential that they are dealt with in a timely manner so as to expedite workflow (Johnson, n.d.). The length and the breadth of the conflicts depend on where the conflict takes place in the hierarchy.

Many managers tend to ignore these problems and think that it will disappear, however these problems can escalate and go out of hand, resulting in unnecessary stress, barriers to a smooth work flow, and in extreme cases termination or resignation. When conflicts go unaddressed, they can have a negative impact on productivity and teamwork. “Using the right strategies, it will maintain a healthy work environment. Conflict resolution requires specific leadership skills, problem solving abilities and decision making skills” (Notredameonline, n.d).

This does not mean that workplace conflicts should not exist at all, because, to a certain extent, it means there is a healthy flow of ideas among colleagues and everyone is interested in the betterment of the company. However, it can become counter-productive when the conflicts leads to large amounts of gossip, stress among employees, high sick leaves taken, and a hostile work environment.

1. BODY

To ensure that the main areas of workplace conflicts are researched, we have put down three main objectives of the research paper below. These will be explained in detail.