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Essay / A Case Study of an Effective Communication Strategy for Organizations in Managing Internal Conflict
The contemporary work environment consists of diverse cultural, ideological and hierarchical compositions. In this environment, conflicts and tensions will always arise between different people or groups when interacting in the workplace. Therefore, even the best work environment and organizations, regardless of their size, cannot be free from conflicts and tensions. Organizational conflicts are internal conflicts that often arise naturally from disagreements between individual employees in the organization or between other employees and management. Champoux (2010) argues that these disagreements arise when individual values differ or when one of them fails to fulfill the expected mandate. When poorly managed, the distress caused by conflict can inflict pain and disappointment on those affected. Effective conflict management starts with strategic internal communication. This essay will provide an effective communications strategy for an organization that has experienced internal conflict directed at its employees by co-workers. When these strategies are employed, they lead to increased communication by teaching employees to respect diverse cultures; thus leading to a stronger relationship between employees and, subsequently, customers. This will also increase the productivity of the organization in question. Some of the strategies that are going to be discussed would also be useful to a wide variety of businesses; due to the fact that cultural diversity is a reality in most workplaces these days due to the globalization of business and the world. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay LeasePlanUSA is a fleet management and vehicle leasing company headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia. Over the past month, the company's employees have been involved in conflicts that have caught the attention of management. It has been identified that conflicts have developed due to cultural diversity in the workplace, leading to discriminatory tendencies. The second reason for conflict within the organization is the tendency towards bullying and harassment, and finally, power issues and contradictory dialectics on issues among employees. These tensions and conflicts in the workplace harm the minds and morale of employees because conflicts erase the ideal conditions for a productive work environment. As such, customer satisfaction suffers as workplace morale continues to decline. To address these issues effectively, I developed an internal communications strategy that would ensure that everyone in the organization felt protected and respected, especially among colleagues regarding their cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The first approach to developing an adaptive internal communications strategy adapted to LeasePlanUSA is anchored on their organizational culture. LeasePlanUSA has anchored its organizational culture on four key values, namely: passion, expertise, respect and commitment. These core values are expected to be exemplified every day by LeasePlanUSA employees and the provision of excellent customer services. However, this appears to have slipped the minds of employees, who engage in acts of discrimination and harassment in the workplace and potentially with some customers as well. Culture can be defined as a system of knowledge,ideas, beliefs, values, powers and rules shared by the members of a particular society and which therefore constitute the basis of their mode of interaction. To understand its relevance in conflict resolution, it is important to understand that culture is transmitted to other people through oral and written means, through group/team bonding activities, and through socialization ( Samson and Daft, 2011). Therefore, restoring the cultural values of the organization in the thought and action process of employees when dealing with each other would be the ultimate goal of the internal communication strategy. The core values of the organization, namely: passion, expertise, respect and commitment must be exercised by each employee not only towards customers and the governing body of the organization, but also towards each other the others. The major objective would therefore be to allow employees to revisit the fundamental values of the company's practice. The mini-goals of this activity would be to enable employees to practice and instill in them each value. This includes being passionate about their work, demonstrating professionalism in all their endeavors, showing respect for each other and other stakeholders, and remaining committed to the company's aspirations. Second, the internal communication strategy would be largely anchored on the organizational structure of the company. In many companies, including LeasePlanUSA, the organizational structure sets the tone and determines the patterns of interpersonal communication. While large, highly stratified organizations tend to use formal communication approaches, small, relatively flat organizations use informal modes of internal communication. However, it is important to note that the form of communication used by an organization depends largely on the preferences and norms of the manager. Effective managers must learn to develop appropriate communication styles to become the company norm. For LeasePlanUSA, the success or effectiveness of the internal communications strategy would therefore be geared towards providing an effective interpersonal environment that would allow employees from all work groups and hierarchical configuration to be heard and respected. This would ensure that mutual respect is restored and that cases of harassment can be objectively identified. To facilitate this environment, the internal communications strategy will develop a feedback cycle that will provide an interactive environment for each employee, as cited by Dwyer (2012). Highly interactive communication will encourage the use of the feedback cycle to reach mutually beneficial decisions, particularly in dialectical conflicts. The main objective of internal communication includes: providing information, acquiring information, clarifying issues and influencing action. The effectiveness of this process can be determined by the type and timing of comments obtained from the public to whom the release is addressed. To encourage honest and effective feedback, this internal communications strategy for LeasePlanUSA will develop a rapid feedback system that will enable rapid communication between employees. Developing an effective feedback system to facilitate the environment for effective communication also depends on organizational culture and organizational structure. Thanks to these, the mode of conditioning of internal communication can be determined. It must be effective and acceptable by all standards. Therefore, internal communication can be presented anddistributed in the form of newsletters, on the intranet site, in the form of personal emails, face-to-face meetings, group meetings or team building exercises. The nature of the conflicts within this organization has affected the core values of the company. Internal communication will therefore be presented in three modes. These include personal emails sent to each member of the organization and regular group meetings to promote dialogue and cohesion; and by induction. These strategic conversations which promote dialogue allow the development of a normal internal communication environment in the organization. The major content of the communication is focused on understanding the individual frustrations and challenges faced by employees. LeasePlanUSA has up to approximately 130 employees. To facilitate effective communication, the communication strategy will include both long-term and short-term activities. Long-term activities will include the integration program. The onboarding process is an integration program applied to new members/employees. This includes welcoming new employees and introducing them to their new positions and expected roles. New employees will also be congratulated personally by letters from the company's management. The organization can go the extra mile and also send congratulatory messages to the family of the new employees. It is a very powerful communication tool that reinforces the culture of the organization in the employee's value system. By introducing this onboarding program and complementing it with regular communication reminding employees of the importance of cohesion and the importance of diversity, the organization can be guaranteed fewer cases of discrimination and harassment. These feelings lower employee self-esteem and can lead organizations to lose talented employees due to frustration. Second, communication content can be presented and disseminated in the form of team meetings and group meetings. This should be well prepared and the meeting agenda should be discussed in advance using the company intranet and social sites (if applicable), as well as memos on bulletin boards . Strengthen the effectiveness of group meetings and ease tensions that could further escalate the conflict. This includes depersonalization of arguments and careful choice of wording. Meetings must be able to provide objective analysis and relevant arguments that are not personal attacks, but must be anchored on the analysis of the importance of values. The communication should also highlight the fact that the selection process ensured that everyone entering the company was qualified; therefore, mutual respect should never be compromised. Another approach to ensuring effective focus on the existing conflict is to transform it into research. The intention is to transform the conflict into a source of information that would improve the work environment. This can be achieved by carefully wording questions in an open-ended format. This will make it possible to develop clarity of situations and will in particular make it possible to develop specific examples of situations which have led or are leading to conflict. However, it is important for leaders to understand that the process must always be placed in the context of the company's aspirations. This requires moderation and bipartisan guidance. Therefore, it is important to understand that conflict can be perpetuated due to threat. This threat may be perceived as targeting their reputation, calling into question their judgment or.