The workplace is your second home. In fact, some of you probably spend more time at work than you do at home. In fact, you are lucky if you have the opportunity to work in a job that you find challenging and interesting. But as satisfying as his job is, there always seems to be some kind of conflict.
Conflicts in the workplace occur regularly between team members, departments, managers, vendors, vendors, and sometimes customers. If you are a manager, then the problem of conflict in the workplace becomes a major problem, since you regularly confront it. As one manager complained, they seemed to spend more time mediating between people who behaved like spoiled children rather than creative and productive people.
What is conflict in the workplace?
Workplace conflict can be defined as a strong difference of opinion that occurs in the workplace. It may start as a simple complaint or just a difference of opinion. In many cases, these problems resolve gradually or die a natural death. However, statistics show that these differences consume a large part of a manager’s time and occur more frequently. These situations can escalate to such a point that the two parties involved can no longer work together. They begin to oppose the ideas and functions of others simply on the basis of personal prejudices. Affected employees suffer; the manager has to spend time mediating between the two parties instead of focusing on more productive management responsibilities. Employees involved in the conflict may feel uncomfortable working together, and the performance of the entire team suffers as a result.
The definition of conflict in the workplace has varied, each serving to highlight different points of view regarding this ever-present topic. In 1998, Professors Gilbert and Kreikebaum are of the opinion that even if one party justifiably feels or anticipates a disagreement, a conflict can still be said to exist. On the other hand, Donahue and Kolt (1992) say that conflict is “…a situation in which independent people express (manifest or latent) differences in the satisfaction of their individual needs and interests and experience interference with each other in the achievement of these objectives.
Can this universal definition of conflict be applied to conflict in the workplace as well?
Workplace dynamics are somewhat unique, making workplace conflict different. Before beginning to address the issue of conflict in the workplace, the following characteristics must be taken into account:
- While some people work because they love the job and genuinely care, many others need stronger motivation to put all their effort into the job.
- You can’t choose your colleagues. However, you have to spend a lot of time with them, often in a high-pressure situation. This is definitely a recipe for conflict.
- The work environment is a hierarchical structure and employees are interdependent with each other. Thus, perceived inefficiency on the part of one employee will affect the quality of the work of others.
- There are a number of dynamics at work in the workplace. There is interdependence between colleagues, between employee and manager, employee and customer, as well as between employee and outside providers. Any time this delicate balance is upset, conflict in the workplace is the inevitable result.
- Increases in the volume of interactions accompanied by a lack of open and defined communication are another vital ingredient in workplace conflict.
- People with different personalities, cultures, and styles are often required to work together interdependently. Personality clashes, as well as a clash of ideas, consequently set the stage for conflict in the workplace.
The result of all the above factors can cause a disruption of the work environments and the creation of a conflict in the workplace.
According to a study by Thomas and Schmidt in 1976, a typical manager spends nearly 30% of their time resolving conflict issues in the workplace. This was followed by another similar study by Watson and Hoffman in 1996 which showed that this time workplace conflict has increased to 42% of a manager’s time in recent years.
The fact is that workplace conflicts can arise for a number of reasons, including differences in work styles, backgrounds and gender, personalities, and skill level. When these types of conflicts are not resolved, they can become a much bigger problem down the road. Unanswered or unmanaged conflict can escalate and disrupt an organization’s growth as workers begin to spend more time entrenched in conflict than working on organizational goals.