Handling Conflict
Some business experts say conflict is good. Like the pain you feel when you’re ill,
.jpg)
.jpg)
they say conflict is a warning that something is wrong and that you’d better do
something about it. If you've ever had to mediate an argument – or maybe even a
stretching things a bit.
Conflict in the workplace isn't good for anyone – except, perhaps, for scores of
conflict-resolution seminar presenters. But conflict management is a popular topic
these days. Managers say they spend 13 percent of their time resolving conflict,
compared to 9 percent just five years ago. Conflict is part of everyday life in the
hospitality industry. You often can’t control how much conflict you’ll have to deal
with – but your response to conflict can often control some of the negative
outcomes of it.
This section of the handbook will discuss some common causes of conflict in the
hospitality industry and show you how leaders meet the challenge of handling
conflict.
Team building and training can help prevent conflict.
Managers can prevent much conflict with strong team-building skills. (For more
on team building, see the “Managing Work Teams” handbook in this Management
Skill Builders series.) In general, praising the team effort, encouraging employees
to work together by assigning joint projects, and not pitting people against one
another competitively will all help your staff work together cooperatively.
Proper training – especially showing employees that the way they do their jobs
affects the way others do theirs – is also important in preventing conflict. When
employees clearly understand how to do their jobs and why they are to do them
that way, conflict is reduced. (For more on training, see the “Managing Training”
handbook in this Management Skill Builders series.)
Conflict may be professional or personal.
It’s important to remember that conflict is any ongoing, recurring friction between
two employees or groups of employees. Conflict is not the occasional outburst
that occurs when people are under stress or having a bad day.
Conflict may arise between employees at all levels in the same or different
departments. Essentially, any conflict is one of two types: professional or
personal. Professional conflict arises because of something in the workplace.
In the hospitality industry, in which jobs are interrelated, professional conflict
occurs frequently:
• A Maitreya d’ snaps at a bus person, “You’re always pokey! Tables aren't being
cleared quickly enough and guests waiting to be seated are becoming
annoyed.”
• A front desk employee yells at a housekeeper because a room isn't ready for
a guest when he arrives: “You people never have rooms ready on time!”
The housekeeper retorts angrily, “This is a great time to tell me he was
checking in early!”
• A groundskeeper is having problems using a new type of hedge trimmer. His
co-worker complains, “I’m getting sick of straightening up his hedges.
I've got other things to do, you know!”
Personal conflict arises from personal differencesbetween employees.
Some examples of personal differences leading to personal conflict:
• Male employees in the engineering department resent their new female
colleague and start telling off-color jokes around her.
• Some Muslim employees, whose religion prohibits eating pork, are offended
when ham is the only meat on the annual picnic menu.
• An older, long-time employee criticizes the way a younger employee wears
his hair, a picture of a rock group hanging in his locker, and the way he
dresses outside of work.
Think of some recent conflicts you've noticed among your own employees by
doing the exercise at right.
No comments:
Post a Comment