White Paper
Workplace Conflict
Conflict Management Training for Fort Kent Aging
To Human Resources/Management Team of Fort Kent Aging,
Introduction:
We at Thetis Communication Consulting pride ourselves on being the primary source of conflict management training. For many years, we have perfected the craft of instructing organizations, both major and local, on the principles and importance of conflict management. The goal of this document is to both inform and instruct our client, Fort Kent Aging, on the importance of conflict management within an organization. Our firm is well suited to this task as Thetis Consulting boasts highly skilled Conflict Communication Experts. These experts remain up-to-date in all current conversations and theories on not just Conflict Management, but all aspects of the field of Communication. They do so in order to provide our clients with the most optimal and most accurate interpretation of Interpersonal Communication within an Organization. This white paper will showcase our expertise and establish why Thetis Communication Consulting would be the perfect choice for conducting conflict management training for the staff and faculty at Fort Kent Aging.
Background/Problem:
For the past 30 years, Fort Kent Aging, an agency on aging located in the Southeastern region of Virginia, has delivered professional quality programs and services for people of all ages. Established as a non-profit 501(c)3 in June 1994, Fort Kent Aging is known for its ability to collaborate and form partnerships with federal, state, and local governments, community and civic groups, faith communities, and businesses. Fort Kent Aging is also known for its innovation and leadership in developing new services that help meet the needs of its citizens. With this innovation, compounded with the rapid growth the organization has experienced over the last 5-10 years, it is no surprise that some aspects of the Employee Handbook would become antiquated rather quickly. With growth comes an onslaught of new individuals being introduced to positions that may not have previously existed. Thus, new chain of commands and subsequent communications in these chains have also manifested. Antiquation, combined with the onslaught of new individuals blending with the established individuals, is a perfect storm for having conflict occur in the workplace. Left unchecked, conflict that occurs within the work environment can create a rather toxic atmosphere. An atmosphere that results in un-cooperation among team members, low productivity, and may even result in workers moving on to companies that practice more proactive conflict management.
Of all the different forms of conflict in the workplace, most likely the most common type we see executed is Interpersonal Conflict; that is, conflict that occurs between two (or more) parties. This happens to also be one of the main reasons why an employee may choose to leave one company in favor of another. In 2022, a study was conducted by Arkadiusz M. Jasiński and Romuald Derbis of the Department of General and Work Psychology at the Institute of Psychology of the University of Opole in Poland. Their study had two aims: the first was “to determine whether organizational constraints, interpersonal conflicts at work, workload and negative affect at work have a positive relationship with intention to leave a current job or profession”. The second was “to investigate whether negative affect at work mediates the relationship between work stressors and intention to leave a current job or profession”. They went on to collect data from a sample that consisted of 306 midwives working in the Polish public health service. As provided in Jasinki and Derbis’ journal, “the results confirmed positive direct relationships between workload and negative affect with intention to leave the current workplace and intention to leave the midwifery profession in general. The relationships between organizational constraints and interpersonal conflicts at work and intention to leave a job or profession were found to be completely mediated by negative affect at work. Our study revealed that workload is the strongest direct predictor of intention to leave the current job or profession. Organizational constraints and interpersonal conflicts at work lead to an intention to leave a job or profession by inducing negative affect at work. Interpersonal conflicts at work are the strongest predictor of negative affect at work”. (Jasiński, Derbis 2022)
Additionally, we do see other forms of conflict in the workplace. Similar to Interpersonal Conflict, Intragroup Conflict occurs between employees among particular groups or teams within an organization. The conflicts that occur at the Interpersonal level do also occur within workplace departments, teams and even among administration. Finally, we have the third form of conflict, Intergroup Conflict. Sometimes called Interdepartmental Conflict, this form of conflict essentially occurs between groups within the same organization. While Intragroup Conflict occurs within departments themselves, Intergroup Conflict occurs between two or more departments within an organization. The problem that Fort Kent Aging has is not so much that they experience all levels of conflict within the workplace, but that when conflict does occur, there are either no resources on conflict management, or, if there are any resources, the literature is outdated and thus, obsolete.
Solution:
So, what is the solution to the issue Fort Kent Aging is experiencing? What does Thetis Consulting believe this Agency on Aging needs in order to have a healthy and productive workplace environment to which then continue to provide professional quality programs and services for people of all ages? The solution: Conflict Management Training. What Thetis Consulting seeks to do is to conduct and implement conflict management training for every employee of Fort Kent Aging. This will be implemented across several strategies designed to accommodate every employee and meet them where they are throughout their day at the office.
What can Fort Kent Aging expect from training such as conflict management training? The Agency can expect to see a series of pre-made training videos created and produced by Thetis Consulting, featuring reenactments of scenarios that may be experienced in the workplace. These videos will be presented to the employees as modules that must be completed in consecutive order. These reenactments will feature interactive questions and answers that employees will need to “interact” with in order to continue in the training. The questions presented in the interaction will be linked to the outcome of the scenarios in the video, meaning that the answer that the employee provides will decide how the scenario in the video continues. This method of training will highlight what sort of conflict the employee might expect to see within the workplace. These videos will provide the employee with the opportunity to decide on how exactly they will interact with the conflict and also how to give options on how to approach said conflict. Upon completion of said videos, there will be quizzes to test the employee on what they learned. Upon completion of these quizzes, their score is recorded, and they can move on to the remaining modules. After completion of these modules and subsequent quizzes, the employee is marked as certified by Thetis Consulting. The Employee will then be presented with a Certificate of Completion by Thetis, indicating that they have completed the required modules and thus, have completed their Conflict Management Training.
Some examples of concepts of conflict management Fort Kent Aging may see in these training modules are as follows:
· Handling Conflicts Constructively, by teaching the following methods to de-escalating the conflict: Preparing to Negotiate, Conducting the Negotiation, Bargaining, Mediation, and Organizational Conflict Management
· T.R.I.P. Goals, or Topic, Relational, Identity, and Process.
· Anticipate Misunderstandings, studying the benefits of misunderstandings and Why there are so many misunderstandings.
· Strategic Communication, and the study of the 3 C’s (Contain, Cope, Construct)
· Climate Control or attempting to defuse tension.
Many other concepts and solutions to conflict will be presented in these modules.
Companies that have utilized training designed in this manner have seen great success in how their employees approach conflict and communication in the workplace as a whole. Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen from the “Journal of Conflictology”, explored how conflict management training changed workplace conflicts. In her article, published in May 2012 of the same name, she argues that “While many organizations offer conflict management training to both staff and management, there has been little research investigating the changes resulting from such training”. She goes on to defend her use of a course-like approach to conflict management training. Arguing that, “the purpose of the 35-hour program of conflict management was to promote knowledge about conflict resolution and provide training to deal more constructively with conflicts. The training program was normative: it was considered that providing participants with methods and tools for understanding and working with conflicts would enable a more productive resolution of conflicts. The training program was presented to 18 of 30 staff members in NGO Plus. All four managers at NGO Plus participated in the training. All staff members who wished to participate in the training were given a place on the course, resulting in participation from all areas of the organization. An experienced external trainer, from a local agency, conducted the conflict management training, which included knowledge and skills development in the following areas: defining what conflict is; working with escalation and de-escalation of conflicts; distinguishing between destructive and constructive negotiation styles; reframing the issues in conflict; differentiating between underlying needs versus positions; working with dialogue and active listening; working with phases in mediation and win-win solutions, and negotiating values for the organization. The training methods alternated between presentation of theory and models as a large group, and exercises in pairs or small groups.” (Mikkelsen, 2012). Fort Kent Aging could see similar results if they contract with Thetis Consulting to provide Conflict Management Training for their employees.
Conclusion:
There have been successes within organizations who have completed conflict management training, and Thetis Consulting themselves are no exception. Our organization saw great success when we ourselves mandated all employees go through conflict management training provided by an experienced trainer from another firm. This was the ultimate litmus test for our services. If our employees were able to successfully go through this kind of training, we now know we can remain confident that our service will be impactful. Jose M. Leon-Perez, Guy Notelaers, and Jose M. Leon-Rubio of the American Psychology Association recorded their findings of a study they conducted that “assessed the effectiveness of an intervention for handling interpersonal conflicts at work. In contrast to the mainstream approach in the health care industry, which focuses on developing formal systems of conflict resolution, our intervention consisted of enhancing health care workers’ conflict management skills through training. A pre- and post-test nonequivalent comparison group design was used (intervention group = 258 workers; comparison group = 243 workers). Participants perceived that the training was successful in reducing the number and intensity of conflicts with co-workers, patients, and patients’ relatives. Moreover, organizational indicators calculated on the basis of data obtained from human resources (HR) records show that the intervention was effective, insofar as the number of requests for third-party interventions to mediate conflicts at work, the number of patients’ complaints, and the level of absenteeism all decreased for trained workers, whereas workers from the comparison group exhibited no corresponding changes over time. In the light of these results, this article discusses the design of conflict management measures which could help improve both employees’ well-being and organizational productivity” (Leon-Perez, Notelaers, Leon-Rubio (2016). We hope that by choosing our services here at Thetis Communication Consulting, your organization, Fort Kent Aging, will become another great success story in the training of their employees in conflict management.
Sincerely,
Kory Cave, Conflict Management Expert
Thetis Communication Consulting, INC
Reference Page:
· JASINSKI, A. M., & Derbis, R. (2022). Work Stressors and Intention to Leave the Current Workplace and Profession: The Mediating Role of Negative Affect at Work. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(21), 13992. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192113992
· LEON-PEREZ, J. M., Notelaers, G., & Leon-Rubio, J. M. (2016). Assessing the effectiveness of conflict management training in a health sector organization: Evidence from subjective and objective indicators. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 25(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2015.1010520
· MIKKELSEN, Elisabeth Naima (2012). “Exploring how Conflict Management Training Changes Workplace Conflicts: A Qualitative Case Study” [online article]. Journal of Conflictology. Vol. 3, Iss. 1, pp. 7-17. Campus for Peace, UOC. [Consulted: 01/28/2024].
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