Contemporary Business People and Organization Theories and Concepts Report
Question 1: Training to Promote Functional Conflict in the Workplace
Conflict is a condition or a situation in which opposition or disagreement arises between two or more individuals due to incompatible attitudes, behaviours, beliefs, emotions, goals and values. In a local group or workplace, setting differences are inevitable as members have varied anticipations, attitudes and experiences. Some conflicts can impact productivity, missed out-deadlines, indecision, lack of creativity, apathy and ruins relationships among the workers or employees (George, Erikson & Parhankangas, 2016). However, some conflicts can complement the strategic goals of the organizations. Conflicts of ideas enhance the selection of best projects and tasks. Such conflict is functional. Functional conflicts in an organization have benefits including enhanced performance, creativity and productivity.
Conversely, in most cases and most organization, the conflict is often dysfunctional. It can lead to decreased productivity and demoralize employees by ruining cohesion and fostering hostility among the parties involved. As such, it creates a negative work environment. As a human resource manager, there are couples of training that I can provide to enhance functional conflicts and curb dysfunctional conflicts in an organization.
One of the key training to promote functional conflicts in a workplace is communication skills training. Communication is the most effective tool for managing conflicts in any setting (Eisenberg, Post & DiTomaso, 2019). Employees need to understand how to communicate with each other and comprehend the source of conflicts. They also need to understand the different viewpoints and that communication is more than expressing and talking about your points to other workers. The communication skill training program or workshop will focus on ways of managing information among peers, how to be an effective communicator and enhance interaction skills.
The trainees will get in-depth knowledge of their social style and strategies for adjusting to other employees’ styles. Effective communication also incorporates active listening skills. The training will teach employees how to utilize active listening skills and techniques such as restating and asking questions. If employees understand such active listening skills, they will increase the chances of managing conflicts. Other key focus on the training will include reading non-verbal cues, understanding when to keep quiet and when to interrupt, and being concise and clear when presenting an opinion.
Another training to foster functional conflict in the workplace is teamwork training. In a team, conflicts can occur as a result of individual disagreements and personalities (O’Neill & McLarnon, 2018). As such, employees or individuals must comprehend the values and behaviours that foster team functioning, reducing the chances of violence at the workplace. The teamwork training program will focus on behaviours that foster strong teamwork skills and aid manage or resolve conflict at the workplace. Some of these include an emphasis on the shared or common goals instead or differences and ensuring every team member has a clearly defined duty. Trainees will also get to learn how to suppress personal desires and ego periodically and consider the needs of other individuals.
Another crucial training to curb dysfunctional conflict and foster functional conflicts in the workplace is problem-solving. Problem-solving training will focus on the problem-solving skills that help in resolving conflicts and assisting the employees in approaching the challenge objectively and consider various options available to solve it. When employees understand how to deal with an issue rather than denying or avoiding, they can curb or reduce the possibility of conflict occurring. The training will focus on specific problem-solving actions that they can pursue to successfully manage conflict in the workplace. The trainees will get to understand that once they identify conflict, it’s important to try and establish the cause or source of the conflict before imputing efforts to resolve. Problem-solving incorporates an evaluation of different solution options and considering the multiple points of views and interests. Sometimes a solution option selected to resolve conflicts may not yield fruitful results. Thus the problem-solving training seeks to motivate the employees or individuals to employ problem-solving skills by showcasing a willingness to revisit other conflict resolving options of an unresolved issue and try to find a solution.
Stress is one of the main precursors of conflicts in the workplace, and thus it’s very important to also introduce stress management training. Once the conflict arises in the workplace, it can further induce stress. As such, employees require key tools to control their feelings and emotions and the ability to cope with stressful conditions in the workplace. The training will seek to teach the employees on the strategies for reducing and preventing stress and enabling them to express their conflicts and solve differences with others at workplace harmoniously. Some of the stress management strategies the training will provide that aid individuals with conflict management include talking with others as a way of releasing stress, taking timed breaks. Also, employees can inject senses of humour to dilute frustration and anger that arises after conflict.
The last training I will provide as a human resource manager to curb dysfunctional conflict and enhance functional leadership in the workplace in emotional agility training. Conflicts in the workplace can stimulate stronger emotions more so if the conflicts make an individual feel his/her job is under threat. Emotional agility is very important conflict resolution skills as it enables individuals to comprehend the emotions of all individuals involved in the conflict as well as understanding their own emotions (Newton et al., 2016). Emotional agility training will enable attendees to put their self on other people’s situations and practice compassion and empathy. As a way of cultivating emotional agility, the training will focus on leadership development and provide key strategies for resolving the conflict successfully. For instance, I will teach the employees to learn how to leverage relationship and master influencing techniques for successful conflict resolution outcomes.
Question2: Promoting and Sustaining Ethical Organizational Culture as a Human Resource Manager
Ethics are the values and principles an organization reflects on its practices, policies, and goals (Riivari & Lämsä, 2017). Such ethics are very important for shaping organizational culture. The quality of organization culture depends on the quality of its ethics. A positive culture, whether the clients, customers, employees or employers often enriches and enlivens organizational experience and negative culture, destroys it. As such, there is a need to promote and sustain ethical organization culture in the organization. As a human resource manager, I would ensure the promotion and sustainability of ethical organization culture through the following strategies;
The first way is ethics training of employees and other stakeholders. It is not enough to have policies and codes that address ethics in an organization. The employees and clients or customers need to understand how to respond to various scenarios involving ethics. Thus as a human resource manager, it is crucial to enrol the employees and clients in an ethics training program. Ethical programs focus on activities that foster ethical behaviours and solidifying the organization’s code of ethics or policies. An example of how to promote and sustain ethical organizational culture is by letting employees match different scenarios in a single series of cards with potential responses on another series of cards. After matching scenarios and the responses, then employees should discuss their decisions. In the process of discussion, I will get an opportunity as a human resource manager to expound on why some policies exist and showcase how employees should conduct themselves or respond in ethical scenarios they will encounter at the workplace.
Another way of promoting and ensuring sustainable, ethical organization culture as a human resource manager is by selecting and hiring ethical employees. Apart from establishing an effective code of ethics in an organization, it is very important to employ ethical employees for the stability and sustainability of organizational culture. Employing individuals willing to incline ethically is better than depending on the organization code of ethics to motivate unethical employees to make moral decisions. One of the ways of selecting and hiring ethical employees I will employ is situation-specific questionnaires or personality test. A personality test is utilized in the determination of mood, outlook and temperament of an individual (Sassaman, Dalal & Calvo, 2019). I can customize the situation-specific questionnaires to determine how the candidate will respond when faced a certain ethical dilemma. I can also include the most ethical employees in an organization during the hiring interviews who can ask questions that can provide insights into the candidate like the possibility of making unethical decisions.
Moreover, ensure whistleblower protection within the organization. A whistleblower is an individual who reports unethical behaviours or acts of another individual to a relevant authority in his/her organization. Whistleblower hotline such as phone number is one of the best tools for enforcing ethical organizational culture as it enables employees to report suspected unethical acts such as violation of laws and policies, misconduct, abuse, waste and other acts of impropriety. Employees and other stakeholders may witness unethical acts and are in pole position to report; however, some may not be willing to report due to retaliation fears. Thus, there is a need to ensure that whistleblower reports are anonymous and confidential.
As a human resource manager, I will ensure the promotion and sustainable, ethical organization culture by guarding and championing ethical decisions. Senior management should play a crucial role in fostering ethical decisions and behaviours in an organization. Some of the ways of guarding and fostering ethical decisions in an organization as a human resource manager is planning, communicating and implementing details of an ethics program (Snellman, 2015). Such an ethics program helps to outline key organizational values via utilization of employee or manager training and policies. After the implementation of the ethic program, it is important to monitor and evaluate and adjust the program as desired to ascertain its effectiveness. As a human resource manager, I will promote and sustain ethical organizational culture by modelling and acting ethically, being active in ethics program, addressing ethical issues, encouraging employees to air the issues and enforcing ethics programs like punishing those who violate.
Question 3: Strategies to Improve Negotiation as a Human Resource Manager
Negotiation is a way through which individuals settle differences. Individuals or parties involved in conflict or have differences utilizes the negotiation process to reach an agreement or compromise without dispute or argument (Schaerer, Schweinsberg, Thornley & Swaab, 2020). In any negotiation process, each party seeks to attain the best possible outcome for their position. Comprehending the other party’s tactics and interest is very important in enhancing negotiation outcomes. Selecting the best strategy to respond to such tactics and interest helps one attain the best possible outcomes. As a human resource manager, I will employ conflict resolution strategies such as collaborating, accommodating, compromising to improve negotiation outcomes.
Accommodating negotiation style is very crucial negotiation strategy. It focuses on building and preserving relationships between the parties by sacrificing some organization’s interest in favour of other party’s interest. In this strategy, I lose, you win model applies. As a human resource manager, accommodating enables me to win over the employees or other stakeholders by giving in to their requests. Accommodating involves sharing more information and can create a good relationship and rapport within the organization though it does not work in every organization. I will employ this negotiation style, particularly when an organization has done harm to other parties and seeks to appease the situation. Negotiating using this style enables one to gain skills and negotiates with various bodies or entities.
Another negotiating approach I will utilize to improve negotiation outcomes is collaborating style. The focus of the collaborative strategy is ensuring that all parties meet their needs and follows I win, you win model. The collaboration incorporates building, establishing and strengthening relationships without compromising organizations best interest. I will utilize the collaborative negotiation strategy in most business negotiations. Another strategy I will employ to enhance better negotiation outcomes is compromised. Comprise is a common negotiation style where both parties surrender some of its demands or need to gain other competitive demands or needs (Broome, 2017). Compromise follows a win-lose model where one side gains and the other. Compromise negotiation style is very important, especially when the other party is trustworthy and agreement is under fixed deadline. Employing this strategy will enable the organization to gain more compelling demands or needs by comprising some of the needs. For example, when two states are negotiating and trying to reach a trade agreement, as a compromiser, I may give the other organization greater access my county’s dairy products to gain protections for digital media trade.
References
Broome, B., 2017. Negotiating the Nexus: Symbiotic Relationship of Theory and Practice in Conflict Management. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 10(4), pp.252-264.
Eisenberg, J., Post, C. and DiTomaso, N., 2019. Team Dispersion and Performance: The Role of Team Communication and Transformational Leadership. Small-Group Research, 50(3), pp.348-380.
George, B., Erikson, T. and Parhankangas, A., 2016. Preventing dysfunctional conflict: examining the relationship between different types of managerial conflict in venture capital-backed firms. Venture Capital, 18(4), pp.279-296.
Newton, C., Teo, S., Pick, D., Ho, M. and Thomas, D., 2016. Emotional intelligence as a buffer of occupational stress. Personnel Review, 45(5), pp.1010-1028.
O’Neill, T. and McLarnon, M., 2018. Optimizing team conflict dynamics for high-performance teamwork. Human Resource Management Review, 28(4), pp.378-394.
Riivari, E. and Lämsä, A., 2017. Organizational Ethical Virtues of Innovativeness. Journal of Business Ethics, 155(1), pp.223-240.
Sassaman, L., Dalal, D. and Calvo, A., 2019. How much weight do organizational personality inferences have on judgments of organizations? Journal of Research in Personality, 82, p.103858.
Schaerer, M., Schweinsberg, M., Thornley, N. and Swaab, R., 2020. Win-win in distributive negotiations: The economic and relational benefits of strategic offer framing. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 87, p.103943.
SNELLMAN, C., 2015. Ethics Management: How to Achieve Ethical Organizations and Management? Business, Management and Education, 13(2), pp.336-357.