PLEASE READ AND ANSWER QUESTIONS AT THE BOTTOM IN A PARAGRAPH.

Perhaps as children people fought with their siblings or with others over whose turn it was to play with a certain toy, or argued with their parents over bedtime hours. These disagreements over what should be done or what should occur are called substantive conflict.

Personalized conflict, in which two people simply do not like each other, is laden with emotions. Personalized conflict that cannot be resolved leads to "dysfunctional conflict." The end result is that communications between individuals break down. The workplace may become politicized as other team members either choose sides or withdraw. Thus, dysfunctional conflict prevents the team from accomplishing its goals because communication breaks down and individual pride becomes more important than team pride.

Many people have experienced playground bullying. In some instances, the playground bully has grown up and now works alongside them. The dilemma for many employees is learning to work with such a person. The findings of various studies, which report that "rude behavior is on the rise in the workplace and can undermine an organization's effectiveness," are summarized as follows:

• Incivility has worsened in the past 10 years.
• Thirty-five percent of U.S. workers have been bullied at work, and an additional 15 percent have witnessed bullying.
• Bullying is four times more prevalent than illegal forms of harassment.
• Women are targeted by bullies more frequently (in 58 percent of cases), especially by other women (in 80 percent of cases).
• Rude people are three times more likely to be in higher positions than their targets.

Almost everyone has been on the receiving end of a rude person's temper or a bully's wrath. Whether the crude or impolite behavior takes place behind closed doors or in the open, it directly affects the recipient and lowers group morale. Psychologist Dr. Michelle Callahan contrasts bullying with the boss having a bad day every once in a while. She describes bullying as a recurring behavior that can include yelling, intimidation, humiliation, or sabotage.

At present, workers who are abused or bullied because of their race, religion, sex, or other protected status can confront bullying through existing civil rights laws, and 49 states in the United States have passed school anti-bullying legislation, but no laws exist to prevent or protect all employees from hostile treatment on the job. Twenty-six states have introduced the Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) and New York advocates have succeeded in bringing it through the state senate. Although some employers fear such a law could lead to frivolous lawsuits, the bill and others like it proposed in 22 states would cover "repeated, offensive, and deliberate abuse done with malice."

In the workplace, many supervisors become irritated and confused when employee complaints or grievances challenge their authority. Some supervisors find it difficult to function because they feel that disagreements with employees reflect on supervisory performance or perhaps that there is something wrong with their supervisory abilities. Many workplace events can trigger complaints and conflicts. Communication breakdowns, competition over scarce resources, unclear job boundaries, inconsistent policy application, unrealized, and time pressures are workplace events that commonly lead to irritations, disagreements, and complaints.

For these and other reasons, many supervisors view workplace conflict as dysfunctional because it distracts and detracts from the completion of objectives. However, employee conflicts, complaints, and grievances should be viewed as expected parts of workplace relationships. Of course, it is undesirable for supervisors to confront a constant flood of employee disagreements because this would probably indicate severe departmental problems.

Authors Laura Martin, Meagan Brock, M. Ronald Buckley, and David Ketchen Jr. assert that slacker behavior can be demonstrated in four different ways and that supervisors must address these behaviors differently.

• Sandbaggers look like they are working, but are simply holding up the appearance of doing so by attending meetings or carrying papers.
• Parasites align themselves with a group and put in less effort than the rest of the members.
• Weasels do the minimum amount of work required to complete a task and manipulate work systems to keep output expectations low.
• Mercenaries, often engaged in highly structured jobs, waste time with jokes or tardiness and slow down the pace of the whole work process.

Supervisors can set up self-managed teams and encourage them to compete with each other to achieve specific outcomes, and teams can direct slackers to stay on task. Supervisors should consider the situation and the individuals involved and use strategies that will help all workers achieve common goals, which will build cohesiveness and reduce the potential for conflict.

A conflict arises between what the supervisor is willing to sell the product for and what the customer is willing to pay. If the customer is a long-time purchaser of large quantities of the product, the supervisor would be high on the cooperativeness scale. On the other hand, if the customer purchased very little and only purchased when other suppliers could not fill the orders, the supervisor might rate a moderate to low score on the scale.

There are five conflict resolution styles include:

• Withdraw/avoid: This approach may be appropriate when the issue is perceived to be minor and the costs of solving the problem are greater than the benefits.
• Accommodate/oblige: This approach encourages cooperation. The rule that one good turn deserves another in return is known as the reciprocity reflex.
• Compromise: This style implies that each side will win a little and lose a little.
• Compete/force/dominate: This style is characterized as "I win, you lose."
• Collaborate/integrate/problem-solve: This approach is usually characterized as "I win, you win." Collaborative problem solving, or interest-based negotiating means that one first must seek to determine what the other person really wants and then find a way or show that person how to get the desired result.

The objectives of the organization and the needs of the employee may then be met through collaborative problem-solving. See Figure 14.3 for suggestions for resolving conflict. It should be apparent that the most effective communication and problem-solving take place when people try to share perspectives. When employees are on the same team and want to do a good joband when supervisors are clear in their objectives and work to improve human relationsthere is a better chance of making the organizational climate conducive to the effective resolution of most complaints, grievances, and conflicts that will inevitably occur.

The terms complaint and grievance are not synonyms. A complaint is any individual or group problem or dissatisfaction that employees can channel upward to management. A complaint can normally be lodged in any work environment, and the term can be used to include legal issues, such as a complaint of racial or sexual discrimination. Typically, a grievance is defined more specifically as a formal complaint involving the interpretation or application of the labor agreement in a unionized setting. This usually means that it has been presented to a supervisor or another management representative by a steward or some other union official.

Although the terms complaint and grievance are not synonymous, they are used somewhat interchangeably throughout the text. Whether employees are unionized, every supervisor should handle employee complaints and grievances systematically and professionally. Doing so requires skills and efforts that are major indicators of a supervisor's overall managerial capabilities.

Although the procedures for resolving grievances and complaints are similar, there are some important distinctions supervisors should understand.

Virtually all labor agreements contain a grievance procedure, which is a negotiated series of steps for processing grievances, usually beginning at the departmental level. If a grievance is not settled at the first step, it may be appealed to higher levels of management or to the HR department. The last step typically involves having a neutral arbitrator renders a final and binding decision in the matter.

A complaint procedure, which may be called a "problem-solving procedure," is a management-designed procedure for handling employee complaints that usually provides for a number of appeal steps before a final decision is reached. A procedure for handling complaints differs from union grievance procedures in two primary respects. First, the employee normally must make the complaint without assistance in presenting or arguing the case. Second, the final decision is usually made by the chief executive or the HR director rather than an outside arbitrator.

Some organizations use outside arbitrators as the final step to resolve complaints. When outside arbitrators are used, all parties agree to abide by the arbitrator's decisions. The arbitrator is a neutral third party, and policies for the arbitrator's selection, fee, and hearing procedure are specified and agreed on before the case is heard. A number of firms have combined mediation and arbitration, called "med-arb." Under med-arb procedures, the party's first attempt to resolve a dispute is through some form of mediation. If mediation fails to achieve a satisfactory solution, then there is recourse to an outside arbitrator.

Collectively, these approaches have been labeled alternative dispute resolution (ADR), which generally means processing and deciding employee complaints internally as an alternative to lawsuits, usually in discharge or employment discrimination cases. ADR approaches are becoming more common, driven primarily by the desire of employers to expedite dispute resolution and avoid the high costs of litigation. Many organizations and individuals are experimenting with online dispute resolution (ODR) techniques.

In a major organizational policy statement, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a national organization of HR professionals, has strongly endorsed ADR procedures that "provide employees a process that is accessible, prompt, and impartial, and that results in reduced dispute resolution costs and more timely resolution of complaints as an alternative to costly litigation." In the same policy statement, SHRM has recognized that for ADR to be effective, certain standards of fairness and due process must be met. Included among these standards are:

• The opportunity for a hearing before one or more neutral, impartial decision-makers
• The opportunity to participate in the selection of decision-makers
• Participation by the employee in assuming some portion of the costs of the dispute resolution
• The opportunity to recover the same remedies available to the employee through litigation and confidentiality of proceedings.

A review of management literature, particularly arbitration decisions, indicates that many disputes could be prevented if supervisors practiced good communication skills and displayed genuine concern for employee problems.

Discussion Prompts: chapter 14 post

• Why is it important for a supervisor to understand the difference between substantive and personalized conflicts? Before reading this chapter, what did workplace conflict mean to you? Do you view it differently now? Why or why not?
• Why should employee conflicts, complaints, and grievances be considered natural components of supervision? Define and discuss the five conflict-resolution styles.