How to manage negotiations and conflicts at workplace

It’s good to have diversity in your workforce where different types of people can bring different advantages to your company. But this diversity often results into difference of opinions between two employees or two different departments. Conflicts are a part of working environment and as a manager you don’t need to panic in such situations. You cannot eliminate the disagreements altogether; all you can do is to manage them in a way that it won’t affect your productivity levels. The sooner you deal with them, the better it is for your business; otherwise the conflicts will give way to negative behavior and lack of team efforts, and as a result low productivity.

Possible Causes:
Whenever you get to the bottom of any conflict, you will find the same old cause lying in the roots, and that’s poor (or the lack of) communication. Different types of personality clashes and characteristics are another common problem. Unfair handlings, unmerited promotions, lack of opportunities or any other thing that results into insecurity among employees can also lead to the conflicts. If the work expectations or production targets are too hard to achieve, the workers will get frustrated, outcome might be bullying or regular exchange of harsh words between workers.

What to do:
As a manager who is looking to resolve conflict, you should start with communicating with all parties involved. Be calm, and listen to the whole thing patiently. Encourage everyone to speak their heart out, especially those who are less conversational. When thinking of a solution, try to focus on the problem and not personalities. Keep your personal prejudice away from the decision-making. Be sincere to both parties when taking corrective measures. One thing you should do even before some conflict arise is to eliminate favoritism of any type.

Precautions:
Employees and workers should be well aware of their job descriptions and what the management expects out of them. The rewarding system should be clear and well communicated. Joint decision making at all levels will reduce negative feelings to a great extent. Keep an eye at bullying types, and never let anyone get away with any kind of harassment or discrimination. Try to avoid personality clashes as much as possible, when making teams. If you have this feeling that two persons can’t work together, change the individuals if possible. Interact with all employees every now and then and never rely completely on your sources for the input.