Industrial Conflicts and its Impact on Employee's Productivity

In a competitive world, many businesses have started becoming aware of the latest trends and are trying to improve their performance to sustain themselves.

To become a successful organization, human resource is mandatory. In any organization, conflicts in HR inevitably exist.

According to Esquivel and Kleiner, conflict is generally a disagreement regarding interests and concepts between two parties.

Industrial conflict causes disagreement between employees and employers. Employees occupy a significant role in any organization because they are the reason for the production.

Sources of conflicts

Preliminarily, conflicts arise due to

1. The employer's interest to maximize profits and the employees’ quest for improved working conditions.

2. Failure of agreed terms and conditions between the employer and the employee.

3. Strict rules of the organization.

4. Communication problem between departments.

Though the word conflict looks negative, it does have positive outcomes. Such as

·      Better ideas

·      Employees can test their capabilities

·      Enables creativity

·      Increases interest to work

Whereas the negative outcomes of a conflict are,

·      People feel defeated;

·      Distrust among people increases

·      Creates unnecessary turmoil.

Types of conflicts in organizations

Intrapersonal Conflicts - It is a conflict that occurs when an employee is forced to do a particular task or role which doesn't match with his interests, expertise, and goals.

Interpersonal Conflicts - It is a conflict that occurs between two or more organizational members of either the same or different levels of an organization.

Intragroup Conflicts - These are the conflicts that occur inside a single department like conflict among subgroups concerning their goals and tasks.

Intergroup Conflicts - These are inter-departmental conflicts where two or more groups or departments of an organization get into conflicts.

Effect of these conflicts on employees

According to field survey 2018,

1. Wage differential factor was the main component in intragroup conflicts to which 55% of the employees responded supportively.

2. 44% of the respondents agreed that poor role definition and ineffective human resource policies were the other reasons.

3. In the same report given by field survey 2018, 44% of the respondents agreed that the reason for their low performance is poor negotiations and procedures in the organization.

 

Reasons for Conflicts

1. Isolation of departments where people lose contact with other members of the department and start thinking differently.

2. Increased importance for financial measures for motivation rather than qualitative measures, indirectly creating conflicts.

3. The lower price and better-quality demand from consumers. This is creating pressure on the departments to work more efficiently again indirectly creating conflicts.

Conclusion

As conflict hinders the productivity of an organization, effective conflict resolution practices are the need of the hour. Conflict management strategies like bargaining, negotiation, arbitration, and mediation can be used to resolve conflicts and proper organizational strategies and policies can prevent these conflicts to an extent.

Conflicts can't be eliminated from the roots because it is a part of human behavior. As the surveys also mentioned, poor management is the key factor for inter-group conflicts, the management should take the responsibility of framing effective policies for creating a harmonious relationship with the employees. There should be good communication, following from the top hierarchy to the least subordinate in the organization.

As conflicts are not too bad for an organization, good conflicts should be entertained and bad conflicts should be eliminated.

 

Name: SREE RAMACHANDRA RAO MANASALA

Batch: 2021-2023

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreeramachandrarao-manasala-ab77ab217