Interpersonal Conflict in the Workplace

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Workplace conflict particularly interpersonal conflict (IC) is a major form of workplace mistreatment that causes many negative workplace outcomes such as negative emotions, reduced job satisfaction, and low organizational commitment among others. According to Sliter et al. (2011, p.424), IC is linked to different effects relative to its source.

Therefore, Sliter and his colleagues present a study comparing IC arising from customers on one hand and IC from coworkers on the other hand as reported by 75 workers in a call center. Here, the researchers investigated task performance, physical symptoms, and burnout relative to interpersonal conflict.

The results show that IC from customers is strongly linked to both organizational and personal effects while trait anger moderates the relationship between the variables. Specifically, people who have issues with anger management are more likely to experience many cases of IC when dealing with customers than otherwise (Sliter et al., 2011, pp. 424-425).

Analysis

The research conducted by Sliter and his peers highlights the major negative effects of interpersonal conflict in the workplace some of which may be detrimental to the employee’s health and wellbeing. In fact, it is worth noting that workplace conflict can lead to cases of people leaving their organizations or even getting fired while others suffer personal insults and attacks (Sliter et al., 2011).

While recognizing that organizations are made up of different personality types, it is not surprising that workplace conflict is a reality among workers. Therefore, understanding employee behavior particularly what motivates workers may not only increase job satisfaction among the workers, but it may also help the organizations in terms of managing conflict (Sliter et al., 2011, p. 438).

In the last 100 years, many theories of motivation in the workplace have been presented. For instance, Taylor (1856-1917) took an autocratic approach in his theory of Scientific Management when he noted that workers may not enjoy certain tasks in the workplace, but with close supervision, managers and leaders can get them to work hard and increase their productivity.

Unfortunately, this proposition has been linked to some instances of conflict between workers and managers since most of them are bound to receive repetitive and boring tasks. On the other hand, by deviating from Taylor’s autocratic approach, Mayo (1880-1949) noted that pay cannot satisfy/motivate workers better than having their social needs met in the workplace.

Through his theory of Human Relations, Mayo centered his research on managers and noted that managers have a role to play in terms of maintaining better (two-way) communication, greater manager involvement, and group/team work, which are factors that motivate workers.

Therefore, in practice, organizational leadership should play a major role in creating an enabling environment for dealing with conflict. Furthermore, while it is possible that everyone in the workplace is vulnerable to conflict, the responsibility of dealing with conflict should not be left to the top management and the human resources.

The ultimate responsibility in conflict management belongs to everyone in the organization right from individual workers to managers, human resources, and senior executives. With this responsibility at hand, all workers of an organization should be equipped with the skills in conflict management.

Here, there are a variety of options available to organizations such as formal training in conflict management, informal peer-to-peer training, relationship management training, and mediation skills training among others. Overall, workplace conflict is a reality in the work environment however, there is the need for everyone to play a role in managing conflict for the better of the whole organization and its people.

Reference

Sliter, M.T., Pui, S.Y., Sliter, K.A., & Jex, S.M. (2011). The Differential Effects of Interpersonal Conflict from Customers and Coworkers: Trait Anger as a Moderator. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16(4), 424-440.

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Interpersonal Conflict in the Workplace

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