Effective Steps for Resolving Workplace Disputes: A Practical Guide

When people from different parts of the world work together, conflicting views and opinions are bound to emerge, as each will have their own opinion on different topics. If disputes are left unresolved, these will damage the employees, teams, and organization as a whole. If you are going to be a good leader, you’re likely to be one who contains qualities like curiosity, awareness of your own biases, and recognition and sensitivity to multiple cultural norms. In this blog, we will explore what a workplace dispute is, why it is important to resolve workplace disputes, and a few steps for resolving a workplace dispute in detail.

A few reasons why workplace conflicts arise include:

Miscommunication and misunderstandings
Different perspective leads to different opinions
Difference in learning in processing styles
Poor work environment
Poor Management

Resolve Workplace Disputes: What Does it Mean?

Conflict resolution means solving problems or disagreements between people. Handling conflict well requires constructive methods toward reaching agreements. Bad conflict management would cause negative consequences, such as low productivity, low morale, and bad relations. Most often, as humans have diverse personalities, goals, and opinions, conflicts naturally occur in any workplace. Conflicts can be of various types. While some are loud and screaming with very visible emotions, others are very quiet. Here, people isolate themselves, are very unemotional, and avoid having anything to do with the other person entirely.

Why it is Important to Resolve Workplace Disputes

The ability to manage and resolve workplace disputes is an increasingly important leadership quality needed in today’s diverse and multicultural global business environment. Most of the employees handle toxic situations by avoiding them. Even if some people consider these as a common thing, many people don’t feel the same. They don’t feel comfortable handling conflicts. So it is essential to resolve workplace disputes to avoid missed deadlines, toxic environments, and unsuccessful initiatives.

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Simple Steps For Resolving a Workplace Dispute

Conflict resolution strategies enhance workplace productivity by preventing potential conflicts from becoming a major issue. This would also improve the morale of the workers and teamwork. It is not in one day that one learns how to resolve conflicts, but with constant practice, you can get better at it. Below we have listed a few steps for resolving a workplace dispute, that can help you handle it:

1. Find the Reason of the Conflict

First, understand the reason, and the actual reason behind the dispute before coming to a conclusion. The more facts you gather about why they have a problem, the less difficult it is to solve. You can use concrete strategies like questioning. These strategies will help you find the root cause. Let each party have their say, as you'd do in any case as a manager or supervisor. That proves that you understand both sides of the story and that you are being fair.
2. See Beyond the Incident

In some cases, it is not what happens but rather the people's perceptions of the situation that sets off anger which translates to yelling or fighting. Sometimes, it may be a thing that happened months back and didn’t resolve. It can lead to holding grudges against each other and people start attacking others personally instead of solving the problem. You can help them narrow down the real issue in your office by getting them to sit quietly and ask them things like "what do you think where things went wrong?" or "When do you feel it started?"

3. Request for Solutions

Now that you have heard both of their sides, ask how things can be better. You can ask them "How can you make things between them" and as a mediator, while they answer you must listen carefully.
4. Find solutions both parties agree on

Listen for the best possible option to carry out a resolution and focus attention on the benefits of each idea. Show how each of these solutions helps each person involved and how it contributes back to the organization. For example, you might suggest more teamwork and collaboration to be able to solve team or department issues effectively.
5. Agreement

The mediator's job is to help both parties agree on a solution and move forward. Some mediators write a contract with clear steps and timelines, but a simple discussion might be enough.

The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model to Resolve Workplace Disputes

This model was developed by Dr. Kenneth W. Thomas and Dr. Ralph H. Kilmann and shows five strategies to resolve workplace disputes:

Avoiding
Competing
Accommodating
Compromising
Collaborating

Let’s understand each in detail:

1. Avoiding

There is always an option of avoiding the conflict best suited when neither the relationship nor the goal matters. This, of course, happens very rarely at work, but it certainly happens in daily life. Suppose you are getting your ride in a public bus with somebody putting through loud music. There are very less chances that you would meet again so it is better to avoid that person at that moment. In most cases, however, your goals and relationships at work matter, so avoiding conflict can be detrimental.

2. Competing

Competing is a conflict style that is not typically considered ideal for the workplace but is a useful approach in few situations. It is used when your goal to be met is crucial but your relationship with others is not considered a priority. You can apply this approach in emergency circumstances, such as when a patient needs to get to the hospital and people are arguing about what they should do but you step in to take the initiative sooner to help the person get the medical attention sooner.
3. Accommodating

The third conflict resolution approach is accommodation. You give in so that they can get their way. This only works where you place the relationship over your goal. For instance, you come up with an idea in a meeting and fellow colleagues do not agree with your idea; hence, you withdraw the idea so you both can be on better terms. Accommodation can be useful when the other person is upset or when the issue isn't very important to you. It reduces conflict quickly by giving up your own goal. But use accommodation less so you don't avoid a fight because it blocks opportunities for problem-solving.
4. Compromising

Compromise involves compromising some of the needs of both sides. It is called "lose-lose" because neither person gets everything they want. Its advantages are a little more important when both the goal and relationship are of medium value. You love the relationship but can't give up your whole goal. That's true accommodation. For example, if you and your friend both want to head a project, you can compromise by co-leading it or taking turns. You have to realize that you're not going to get everything. Instead, the benefit of compromise is that both parties respect the relationship and are willing to make sacrifices so both can get what they want.
5. Collaborating

Collaborating is the opposite of compromising, whereas compromise is a "lose-lose" strategy, it is a win-win to collaborate. In collaboration, both your goal and relationship are important, so you and the other person collaborate to find a solution that will meet all needs.