Organizational Conflict Essay

Conflicts within an organization can be difficult on employees. Some conflicts may be petty and some could end up in violence. They are often started because of the difference of opinions between employees (Shetach, A., 2012). Regardless of the situation; employers cannot afford to have conflicts within their organization. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the reason for the conflict within this organization and to come up with ways to help solve the conflicts. Description of the Conflict The conflict at my place of employment is that there are never enough associates scheduled to perform the duties that are needed to be done. The ICS team is the main team that goes through the inventory in the back room on a daily basis. Their job is to bin every item that comes within this store with a labeling system. The problem that is being cause is that there are not enough associates able to keep up with binning the items after the ICS team finishes scanning and counting their freight. What conflict that has occurred from this is that the unloaders are coming in and they have to help them out. In return the un-loaders are falling behind in their work. When the morning shift associates comes in; mainly department managers they have to work out the items that the ICS team has scanned. When you look at the amount of freight that is needing to be work out, it could be from four to fifteen L-carts. L-carts are the large carts that are used to move large freight to the floor or to the customer’s car. Production was falling behind because there was not a good plan set into place on who, what, and how the receiving area of the store would be operated. There was lack of communication that was going on between upper management and lower management. It seemed as though the associates were the ones that were making the decisions instead of the managers. The ICS team and the un-loaders were constantly arguing with each other, claiming that the other one is not doing their job. The department managers were coming in to work stating that the overnight associates were not putting out freight. It looked as if the same freight was left from the day before was not being worked. Level of Conflict There are four levels of conflict within an organization (Baack, D., 2012). What is going on within this organization is called intragroup conflicts. Intragroup conflicts occur when incidents between members of a team do not have the same mind set concerning goals. They disagree with the way the operations are being handled and the leadership (Baack, D., 2012). If conflicts are left unattended within an organization it could affect the overall goal of the company. The teams may not do what they need to do and the decision that they make in doing their job may not be the right decision (Baack, D., 2012). Propose Steps to Resolve the Conflict There are five steps that must be followed in order to help resolve conflicts within this organization. The first thing is to identify the parties that are involved in the conflict. Determining if the entire team is involved or if there is an individual that is causing the conflict need to be investigated first (Baack, D., 2012). By doing this, it will allow for the managers to help determine what is need to be done in order to resolve the conflict. This conflict can be stopped with the proper communication between team members and management. But they need to have weekly meeting in order to go over their goals and their concerns (Shetach, A., 2012). Having meeting will allow the team members to voice their opinions if they feel they may not be doing ample amount of production that is needed in order to be productive. This can be analyzed by management as soon as it is brought up in the meeting. The management team needs to find out what the real issue is within the team and figure o ut how the problem started. While they are investigating this issue they need to also know what position that each team member have concerning this conflict (Baack, D., 2012). This can help management to understand where each team member stands on this conflict so it could help them come up with a better solution in order to stop the problem. Finding an area in which there can be bargaining is very important in resolving conflicts within an organization (Baack, D., 2012). Management need to stay neutral in making a decision regarding the conflict that is going on between the ICS team, the unloaders, and the department managers. There should be lines in which the managers need to be able to listen to all sides and not show favoritism. Finding the best solution for the organization in what is important. The policies need to be addressed at the time when bargaining process is going on (Montgomery, M., 1995). At the same time, the team members need to be able to work through their conflicts. There need to be a check list that needs to be done on a daily basis in order for each backroom associate to follow. If they are not able to do what they are assigned then they should be able to type in the reason why. For example, I was called to work in the garden center by Assistant Tony. It should have the time, and date on the log so that it can show the reason why a task was not completed. Management should not be able to call an ICS member out of their work area for more than 15 minutes a day. Considering they might be one of four that was assigned to scan in what is coming off of the trucks. Another step that could help resolve the conflict is to schedule people with the department managers that only have one associate. Some department managers do not have more than one associate within th eir area. A department manage usually have five hundred to five thousand prices changes to do on a daily basis. They have to work their bins; bins are the freight that they have to put out on the shelves. If more associates are schedule past 5 pm, it could help the organization to make a better profit; because the shelves will be filled. Not all conflict situations are the same. Some may be resolved if the people that are involved learn the effect that their opinion, attitudes, or behavior have on other team members (Montgomery, M., 1995). Some of the managers need to be more productive by helping the team members to see what they need to improve in or what they have to offer to make the team stronger. Outcomes to the Conflict Resolution By not doing anything and letting the teams argue about what each other are doing it will cause a lack of production within the team. It could affect the entire team as a whole. Agreement is very important in a conflict resolution (Baack, D., 2012). When all of the team members on the ICS, department managers, and the un-loaders believe that their opinions matters that is when agreement is reached. The managers have to let them all know that all of the concerns that were leading up to their conflicts have been met. Everyone will be held accountable for their own job expectation, and no one will be pulled out of their area for more than fifteen minutes a day. The night managers will make sure that they have associates working in areas that have the largest amount of freight in order to keep the department managers from being over whelmed. Stronger relationships may develop between the teams; however, some teams like to work without other teams being involved. Take the ICS team for example; they do not trust anyone to count what is coming in on the truck. If an upper member of management scans what comes in on the truck they do not have much of a choice. If a new employee is in training they have to gain trust within this group before they let them work by themselves. And finally organizational learning can take place among team members. The can learn how to work together by coming up with better ways to find solutions to the problems they may encounter within their team (Baack, D., 2012). They can learn how to deal with each other on a personal level because they may have learned what each team needs. If the meetings continue to be given between these three teams on a weekly basis, this will teach them. In conclusion, there conflicts can make it difficult for team to work together. This paper was to show ways that teams could resolve their conflicts in order to help their organization to run smoothly and put a handle on conflicts. References Baack, D. (2012). Organizational behavior. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc Montgomery, M., (1995). Five steps to resolves conflicts. Supervisory Management, 40(10), 8 Shetach, A., (2012). Conflict Leadership. Navigating Toward Effective and Efficient Team Outcomes. Journal for Quality & Participation, 35(2), 25-30