Public Sector Dealing With Clients’ Problems and Conflicts
It is quite difficult to measure how much the public sector has been successful in dealing with clients’ problems and conflicts. This occurs due to the varying attitudes of people and understanding among the different clients; considering all these facts, the public sector needs to design strategies that would prove to be helpful in dealing with the issue. Certain key points are mentioned below:
- Serve the client’s interest.
- Support precision and inspection.
- Support to individual responsibility.
- Creating an organizational environment that can tolerate conflicts.
The above key points have been outlined by the public sector to cater to the clients’ daily issues. They have proved to be quite efficient and make it easier to resolve the matters that tend to occur on daily basis.
Management Perspective of Dealing with Conflict and Resolution in the Public Sector
Managers all over the world have to cope with conflict situations but the ones in the public sector encounter a greater magnitude of conflict as compared to Managers in private sectors. Today in a bureaucratic setting, under loads of regulations and accountability, where managers are pressured to generate more from less, public organizations come across loads of factors that balance internal and external conflicts (Bercovitch). Identifying, dealing with, and resolute the conflict is, therefore, a crucial skill for public managers.
However, dealing with conflicts is harder than it is to say. It demands skills that few public administrators possess. Sometimes the problem is not recognized, at other times managers themselves are avoiding confrontation or overlooking complex mattered. However, you can’t resolve conflicts by ignoring them, because negative conflicts always leave their aftermath. These kinds of managers are entitled to be inefficient and ineffective for their teams. Further, we would discuss in detail the organizational conflict and conflict resolution in the public sector.
What is conflict?
Conflict is defined as a process that generates opposition and discomfort between two parties. Conflict often becomes responsible for causing problems in the future relationship. Conflict develops when one of both parties or both of them does not respect the other’s feelings. The parties can be individuals or groups, or even organizations, or maybe an individual representing the larger group.
Conflict in Public Sector
Regarding workplace security and environment, the public sector or government is known to be the hardest one to work in. the workplace stress and violence ratio are also comparatively higher. The reason is that government plays diverse roles, some of which are law enforcement and regulatory. It controls and directs the practices and behavior of the public and organizations (Bercovitch). So eventually it attributes to an uneven interaction with the customers.
Moreover, the image of a public sector employee or administration is subjected to an inappropriately abrasive stereotype. We often hear almost everywhere around us that government staff is indolent, slacker and inconsiderate, the management is irresponsible and culpable, etc. This often clouds the perception of clients dealing in public sector.
Another major cause of conflict in public sector is their uncertain and dynamic environment in which they function. Governments change and so their appointed employees. Rules and regulations keep changing in order to adjust with emerging needs and objectives keep changing with global events. (Demirjian)
Importance of Conflict Resolution
Conflict is known to be detrimental in general; however it has a number of advantages one can benefit from. A absolute absence of conflict can result in indolence and indifference. A balanced degree of conflict can however result in generation of new ideas, a healthy competition and rejuvenates behavior. In public sector and nonprofit organizations, managers’ approach is that conflict contributes as an advantageous factor for qualitative decision making. Extremity in degree of conflict either low or high may result in impairment in performance, however moderate conflict leads to improved performance. (Kenneth)
Reactions to Conflict
Generally conflict is dealt by a number of diverse behaviors or reactions. The most common are avoidance, accommodation, competition, collaboration and compromise. They are known as Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode instrument.
In avoidance, communication is rather weak; goals are incompatible and not followed objectively. In accommodation, the goals are compatible but the interaction is not that imperative for goal achievement; it’s rather friendly. In competition the goals are compatible and interaction is very important to attain the goals. It has the tendency to change into conflict if competition becomes vigorous. Compromise involve a high interaction with others and the parties involve regard the communication higher than the goals. Collaboration encompasses importance of goals as well as effective cooperation between parties. (Moorhead and Griffin, 387-389)
Once you comprehend the reaction, you can understand the approach and strategy you have to adopt further so that it resolves the conflict and stables the employee or customer relationship.
Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution is a process in which we process through contradicting views in order to attain a common goal or mutual interest. Conflicts must be resolved when they start directing towards the internal instead of external environment of organization and begin consuming your time and effort. Conflict resolution consists of 4 key components:
- Gaining an emotional control over your reactions
- Seeking comprehension
- Recognizing needs and mutual interests
- Seeking common benefit or goal
It’s essential to track the source of conflict. If its individuals then they should be removed and if it’s because of the orientation of goals then necessary changes be made. (Kenneth)
Various Solutions
Structure and conflict management
Structure of organization can be tended to resolve conflicts. The hierarchy of organization can be used by appointing one manager in charge of conflicting individuals, groups or units. Coordination will help eliminate the conflict. The day-to-day conflicts can be dealt by procedures of rules and standards in organizations. In some cases, a liaison role manager should be introduce among the conflicting parties to ensure better flow of communication and integration, blocking path of conflict. (Moorhead and Griffin, 392) However in case of complex conflicts, a task force is needed to be formed where each individual acts as a liaison representing separate groups. Task force dissolves as soon as task is accomplished.
Interpersonal communication and Conflict Management
Interpersonal Communication plays an imperative role in determining the presence, nature and degree of conflict. When two parties are having a futile and negative sort of communication, it indicates a negative conflict. It keeps growing as the time passes. However it is possible to obviate conflict by employing positive communication skills.
Teambuilding activities must be employed to enhance cohesion and spirit among members and improve effectiveness. Through survey feedback, each of the employees expresses their views and perceptions about their supervision freely through a questionnaire and the results are revealed to ensure improvement of management. In case of extreme conflicts, a third party peacemaker can be used who are experts in mediation and negotiation fields and resolve the conflicts of concerned parties. (Moorhead and Griffin, 393)
Negotiation in Conflict Management
Negotiation is the process in which two groups agree on an issue at a point regardless of their different preferences to each other for that issue. In this particular case conflict is avoided before it struck, by discussing and presetting techniques to resolve it. It can be between individuals, groups or organizations- according to the level of extremity in conflict.
Statistical Chart
Best Conflict Resolution
As the visible signs of conflict appear in the behavior of employees, manager should seek for positive resolution of conflict via joint problem solving. If problem cannot be solved through team or group, manager should himself get involved and resolve the problem through negotiating. First he should arrange a one to one meeting with his employees then the other conflicting party, so he can attain a clear idea of the issue. In this step, he should focus to know about the nature and source of conflict, the interest of all the groups, impact on employees and organization, and the underlying rules and regulations. Manager should strive to research this information vigorously so a well-planned strategy can be developed.
Next manager should go through facing employees. Effective communication skills are needed as manager needs to get a complete disclosure of the conflict by both sides in the meeting. Mutual understanding should be targeted in this meeting. Next a follow-up should be conducted, discussing with employees/clients/parties about the options of resolution. Everyone should be involved and consulted. Manager should be totally unbiased and non-judgmental while dealing with the conflicting parties. Next the resolution reached should be complying with the laws, regulations and organizations policies. Commitment should be higher to reach a resolution. However it should be followed-up to make sure whether the resolution provided to the conflict is final and effective. Manager should keep himself prepared for any possible side effects and any chance of further negotiations. (Tekleab, Quigley & Tesluk)
Conclusion
Apart all of the process and procedures, the best method to deal with conflict is to develop a positive and healthy organisational culture and climate. Until and unless the employees are provided with peace of mind and a stress free environment, it would be difficult for them to invest their best efforts. It’s not possible to make your environment absolutely free of conflicts threat and neither should a manager try to do so. It is quite difficult for a manager to resolve each and every conflict that comes under his concern, however efforts should be made to minimize them and the best effects should be extracted from them leaving the rest behind. The objective is to make your surrounding conflict friendly, so that conflicts result in a positive impact. This practice is bound to make a company enhance its operations, productivity and growth.
References
Bercovitch, Jacob. (1983). Conflict and Conflict Management in Organizations: A Framework for Analysis. The Asian Journal of Pulic Administration. Vol. 5. No. 2. Pp 104-123. Web.
Demirjian, Annie. (1997). Conflict in the workplace: the impact on organizations. Optimum.Vol. 30. Pg. 97. Web.
Kenneth W. Thomas. (1992). Conflict and Conflict Management: Reflections and Update. Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 13, No. 3. pp. 265-274. Web.
Moorhead & Griffin, (2009). Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations, 9th Edition, Cengage Learning. Pg. 582.
Tekleab G. Amanuel, Quigley R. Narda, and Tesluk E. Paul. (2009). A Longitudinal Study of Team Conflict, Conflict Management, Cohesion, and Team Effectiveness. Group & Organization Management, Vol. 34, pp. 170-205.
Wellsphere Mental Health Community. (2009). Conflict–What Is It? The Importance of Conflict Resolution Techniques. Web.