Q2
Common causes of conflict and negotiations mistakes in a work-from-home scenario are
discussed below:
1. Limited Resources:
Since different employees have different set of resources and their limit is the most common
factor among all. For example, not all employees can have same type of high-performing
laptops and others devices to perform the company tasks due to difference in job titles and
hierarchy. This may cause conflicts among employees as the employee with a slow laptop or
a internet connection may cause rest of the participants in prolonging the meeting, resulting
to a conflict.
2. Task Interdependence:
In a typical organization, due to presence of a well-set hierarchy, the tasks are mostly
interdependent i.e. person A could only complete once person B sends their share of work for
the further update. For example, one employee prepares the accounts and thereafter the other
employee uses those accounts for analysis. In a work-from-home setting, there might be
delays in sending the work on time therefore those people who depend on others in
accomplishing a tasks would always come in a conflict.
3. Communication Problems:
This is the most common and critical source of conflict in a remote-work setting. Especially,
it is commonly observed that the people are not always online. They might be distracted form
their day-day and routine tasks at home. Some become more distracted while some less. In
result, the flow of communication doesn’t remain constant, therefore the person who is not
sufficiently online will always create the conflict with others who are trying to seek after.
4. Personality Differences:
This may also result in a conflict during work-from-home setting. For example, the boss has
the personality of a go-getter while the employee has the tendency to procrastinate. This
conflict becomes even deeper in the virtual setting because the boss would always keep
intimating the employee to send in their work while the procrastinator would come up with
many excuses for delaying the work, thereby causing a strong conflict.
To address these conflicts, effective conflict management needs to be implemented in full
spirit. For example, in a task inter-dependence, a compromise might take place between two
parties. In the personality differences conflict, composition of the team can be changed so
that people with converging personalities may interact without much conflict. In the
communication problem, majority rule can be employed by binding the employee to commit
a minimum working hours at the same time.
One common negotiation mistake organizations make in a work-from-home setting is having
unrealistic expectations from the employees. I have seen many people complain to their
social circle about spending more time on work in this scenario as compared to the previous
physical one in the office Thus, it is true that organization set unrealistic expectation of
ensuring the employee presence for meetings and tasks beyond their standard working hours.
Also, another negotiation mistake an employee could make is getting overly emotional.
Although current work-from-home is a forced one through pandemic but an employee
doesn’t need to be emotional in their approach to fulfilling the obligations they are supposed
to. Ultimately, the accomplishment of organizational goals would help the employees in
return in the form of monetary as well as non-monetary benefits.
