Author: Maria

Perception is reality.This means that the way a person sees a situation and what the person believes happened defines their thoughts and feelings about a situation or event.Moreover, a person’s current mood or state of mind can easily mold the way they perceive the gestures of another and effects ways in which they wind up handling conflict. Humans are fallible and emotional beings.We take past experiences and apply them to current situations, often misconstruing another’s true intentions.It is difficult to ignore another’s previous actions and therefore people often hold grudges, fail to forgive transgressions, and mistreat others as they have been mistreated.

These very human actions are the cause of things like personality conflicts and bad behavior at work.Often times,conflict at organizations is the result of misconceptions about what people say or do,other times the conflict is due to overrun emotions like jealousy or anger,and sometimes people are just plain mean.

So how can conflict in a work environment be handled in a way that maintains harmony and balance within the organization?

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When handling conflict at work, there is a completely different dynamic compared to other areas of life.There is a hierarchy that needs to be taken into consideration and political intricacies at play that can make dealing with conflict in a work environment tricky, not to mention what can happen if a client is involved in the situation.Because of the work hierarchy, different people within an organization must take different actions when handling conflict and these actions should be based on the roles they hold within the organization.  A member of the management team at SEO companies may (and often should) broach a conflict in a work environment with a set of principles in mind and a standard plan of steps to perform to resolve the conflict, whereas you may not expect such composition from an entry level employee.  However, in both cases the corporation should enforce a set of procedures for managers and employees to follow to guide conflict resolution within the organization.  Conflict at organizations must be handled appropriately to help avoid greater issues, such as lawsuits.

As managers at SEO companies, conflict resolution within your department must be performed delicately so as not to disturb the balance that your team should enjoy on a regular basis.  For you, handling conflict is a necessity and it must be done immediately.Allowing conflict in a work environment to go unchecked can only lead to terrible working conditions for yourself and your department, which will ultimately cause greater conflict.  But resolving disagreements early and effectively will elicit confidence in you from your department and ease work-related stress for everyone, yourself included.

Your corporate guidelines should include steps similar to these:

1. When an employee comes to you with a situation about handling conflict, document the conversation.Ask pertinent questions to gather information and let the employee explain the situation in full.  Relay your understanding of the conflict back to the employee to be sure you understand the situation as the employee has explained it.Ask the employee if there is anything else they would like to add before ending the conversation.

2.Alert Human Resources and/or upper level management as soon as possible that you are handling conflict.This step is necessary for documentation purposes, but also because it’s possible that a similar situation has occurred in the past or within other departments and it is helpful to get insight from your management team.

3.Schedule a time to discuss the situation with other employees involved,individually.If those involved are in other departments, discuss things with Human Resources to understand how it should be handled.

4.Once you have all the facts, discuss resolutions with your Human Resources department or your management team and decide on a plan of action.

5.Deliver your plan of action to the employees involved.

Employees at seo companies should follow steps similar to those outlined below when witnessing another employee handling conflict or when involved in a conflict in a work environment.

1.Report the situation to your manager or to Human Resources immediately.

2.Relay all the information that you have about the conflict.  Answer the questions you are asked to ensure a thorough investigation can be conducted and a proper resolution can be reached.

3.Don’t discuss your situation with other employees within the organization. The conflict resolution process should remain confidential.

4.Respect the resolution that is reached by the management team.

As you understand, every situation is different and handling conflict on a case by case basis is inevitable. There are no perfect resolutions to imperfect situations so, as managers, expect some resistance by your employees. But if you follow your company’s conflict resolution guidelines you should be able to handle conflict with confidence.