Labor disputes are any type of problem that arises within a professional environment and is strictly related to employment guidelines. Therefore, it is important not to confuse a real conflict with what may be a personal or temperamental reaction.
Since labor problems tend to occur in all work environments, having skills that allow workers to resolve conflicts is highly valued by companies. In this way, employees will be able to work more effectively as a team, since they will be able to find quick solutions to problems that arise. In fact, labor disputes arise for a variety of reasons:
- Stress and pressure at work: many workers experience work stress due to salary issues, the high pressure they are subjected to or the lack of coordination between personal life and work.
- Lack of resources, time or materials: The company’s resources are limited and are assigned to employees according to different purely strategic criteria. However, if a worker does not have the same resources as his colleagues, he may feel undervalued.
- Differences between the values of the workers and the company: hiring employees who do not share the same values as the company can generate differences of criteria and favor labor conflicts. Likewise, each worker has a perception of reality and their own style of work, something that can also cause problems.
Types of labor disputes
Within a company, many types of situations are faced that can generate labor conflicts.
We are going to list a series of conflicts to learn a little more about them:
- Intrapersonal: They derive from their personal tone, from the worker himself.
- Interpersonal: Problems between co-workers, relations between worker/worker or worker/company.
- Organizational: Disagreements arise between different companies (collaboration agreements, etc…).
- Collectives: Problems that arise from a large number of workers who disagree with some measure taken by the company.
These would be the main ones but there are many more such as: information, false, perceptions, etc.
Keys to conflict resolution
Some of the keys that stand out the most to be able to adequately resolve conflicts are:
- Have empathy: It is necessary to know how to put yourself in the other’s place when carrying out a good conflict management, if we do not do it, it is difficult to understand and integrate their needs and aspirations.
- Assertiveness: It is important to know how to communicate and take into account your needs without aggressiveness or arrogance. It is important that your opinion is heard and taken into account.
- Know how to listen: Knowing how to listen is essential. Above all, because when we carry out conflict management we have to take into account that what we think we understand and what our interlocutor is trying to say do not always coincide.
- Identify the problem: Sometimes the discussion or conflict is about something trivial but it is nothing more than a way of expressing the real problem. Identifying this problem is essential for good conflict management.
- Be patient: this is essential because many times things are not solved with a few minute conversation, but it takes much longer because it involves a long process.
Prevention of labor disputes
Although there is no formula that avoids all labor conflicts, it is true that there are some measures to prevent them, such as:
- Have and maintain good internal communication: it is very important to make clear the functions and tasks of each employee, their deadlines and how they should be carried out. In addition, internal communication based on education and respect for the proposals of others must be promoted.
- Define company policy: without a clear organization chart on who performs the positions, what are the responsibilities of each worker or what objectives must be met, it is very easy for labor conflicts to arise.
- Avoid rumors: To ensure that they do not spread, it is ideal for the company to communicate to its employees how harmful they are for the organization’s own activity and for the workers. Likewise, with good generalized communication, these unfounded gossip will be avoided and a fundamental measure will be taken in the prevention of labor conflicts.
How to manage a labor conflict?
As with all skills, learning and practice are essential to master them. Learning strategies to know how to react to conflicts and put them into practice, whether in class, at work or even in your day to day, is the key to being able to face conflictive situations.
In this sense, to help people progress, overcome the challenges that may arise and grow in an inclusive and sustainable way, it is committed to some key concepts to promote employability: continuous learning and complementary training.
In addition, there are some techniques for handling conflicts:
- Arbitration: It is proper to resolve disputes quickly. They tend to focus on claims and lawsuits.
- Mediation: The mediator is usually unrelated to the matter and their role is to create the right climate for both parties to understand each other.
- Facilitation: It is recommended for conflicts of low or medium severity. A neutral person helps others to talk and resolve their differences diplomatically and tries to satisfy their different demands.
There are some specialists to resolve these conflicts because one of the biggest mistakes that organizations make is to think about conflicts only when they have already broken out. At this point it is much more complicated to solve them, because negative emotions will also have become the protagonists of the problem.
If you are interested in learning more about labor conflicts and their resolutions, visit our website and get to know us and our weekly blogs.
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