Analysis of The Conflict Situation Experienced at a Technical Service Centre

Introduction

This report is based on the conflict situation experienced at a Technical Service Centre and is aimed at providing recommendations that would be useful in carrying resolution at the centre and preventing future conflict.

Analysis

The conflict that seems to be present is manifest conflict due to observed and open cultural clashes between members of the company. Due to the long history of the conflict not being resolved, it has now prevailed causing the conflict between employees to be more complex. The people that are involved in the conflict are both employees and their employers (employers being the unacknowledged participants). Looking at the history of the employees, some still feel superior to others hence prejudice and discrimination leading to pressure for recognition and values thus maintaining the conflict without resolution. The employers may fear that, if the conflict remains unresolved, productivity level will decrease even further resulting into the company being shut down but if the conflict is resolved the company will grow into a culturally diverse, compatible environment with possibly high morale and motivation. Due to different levels, races and languages there is power imbalance (Tillett and French, 2010)

Evaluation

There exists a sense of interpersonal conflict as well as intragroup conflict. Interpersonal conflict is between two or more people, the experience of conflict, in this case is mainly based on the differences between the employees; they are culturally different from one another, as well as in their ethnicity and their individual levels within the organisation, because of this there could be a difference in opinions which could result in people arguing with one another or even clashing which constitutes a hot conflict. Their constant bickering with one another and gossiping is however making way for intragroup conflict, intragroup conflict occurs within a group.

Preparation

The first thing that we need to do is create an atmosphere that is effective. The second one is clarifying perceptions, such as trying to get all members of the company to have one vision as well as strong organizational culture. Thirdly, we need to look at both collective and individual needs, putting emphasis on collective needs. The fourth step is building positive power by means of focusing on strengthening the morale of the company. The following step is being futuristic and taking lessons from the past, being able to look and plan ahead. The sixth step, creating a valid option, is all about looking for common threads in the situation. The seventh step is about developing stepping stones that lead to action and last but not least is the eighth step which is coming up with a mutually benefiting agreement (Self Help Alliance, 2005).

Collaboration

The grouping of these employees accordingly will enable them to agree on their in-groups problems, which means there will be effective listening because they understand their problems more than outgroups. This is important as each will share their needs and views in their in-group. The groups will be provided with options so to brainstorm and finally agreeing on one thing to solve their conflict.

The best option implemented must therefore be put into practice, perhaps playing roles and training. They must have specific goals for instance, learning about cultural differences in the workplace. (Tillet & French, 2010)

Process

In this regard, grouping of the employees which can be referred to as fractioning because there are underlying conflicts because it is mentioned that they have a long history of conflict that they failed to resolve meaning there are other conflicts arising. When they were grouped into groups sitting together it was an important for them to get comfortable as they are and getting to understand each groups problems with the others. The degree of formality here can be regarded as informal. (Tillet & French, 2010)

Problem Solving

Hicks (2016) states that conflict is a process involving identifying the issues: cultural clashes, understand everyone’ side: sit down with each party if possible and get to understand their side of the story but don’t agree or disagree with whatever they say. List the solutions: brainstorm ideas to combat this conflict, look at the options and choose the best one if the parties agree to reach an agreement, document it and put it in the archives as proof and for future references.

Negotiation

Can be described as an agreement between the conflicting parties that they want to work towards a better relationship’. In this instance we believe that a negotiation would be a waste of time reason being the conflicting parties will have to be interested in solving this conflict for it to work, otherwise the negotiation will not be successful. It is clear from the case study when they enter the room the next day and some employees are angry, others not interested and some there because they felt that they had to be there, that shows there is no cooperation or willingness from either party (Tillet & French, 2010)

Third party facilitation

In cases where an organisation might need a second opinion on a conflict matter, third party facilitators are bought in. In this case, we are the third party facilitators. Facilitators are usually brought in because they are usually not familiar with company politics and are therefore objective in their opinion and only concerned with driving towards the goals of the organisation, which in this case is resolution. According to Fleischer and Zumeta (2005), facilitators oversee the progress of meetings directed towards resolution to try and reduce the amount of tension so that people involved in the conflict are able to communicate effectively about the problems that they have with one another and work together in reaching a consensus.

Conclusion

From our analysis of the conflict using the basic principles of conflict resolution, we have discovered that there are two main issues that the company needs to work on. The first one is effective communication, there is really no communication between the conflicting parties in the technical service center and because of that, there has been a long history of conflict between them. We would recommend an anonymous suggestion box whereby each party will write on a piece of paper what they think the other party should work on to improve their relationship with them.

Secondly, we have seen that it seems management does not do performance appraisals and because of that employees are never praised for their hard work or told what to improve on and that results in the poor production the company is experiencing. So management should try every month to do performance appraisals and even an employee of the month programme to motivate the employees.