Module 3 : Working effectively in an Organization

Key learning outcomes

At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

1. List the organizational policies

2. List the Legislations,standard, policies, and procedures
3. Analyze the reporting structure
4. List the inter-dependent functions
5. List the harassment and discrimination
6. Analyze how to prioritising the task
7. List the types of communication skills
8. Analyzehow teamwork is carried out
9. List the ethics and discipline
10. List of grievances solution
11. Identify the interpersonal conflicts
12. Identify the disabilities and challenges
13. Identify the gender sensitivity and discrimination
14. Identify the applicable legislations, grievance redressal mechanisms
15. Analyze transacting with others without personal bias

Unit 3.1 Organizational Policies

Unit Objectives

At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

1. List the organizational policies

Organizational policy or workplace policy is a type of statement which provides outline of

any organization that practices out the procedures that leads to its business which covers each
and everything from operations to concerns and compliance with the employees legislation.It
also protects the organization from the risk and hazards. It consists of group of statements
which could be of purpose or one or more guidelines and action should be taken against it to
achieve the goal. The statements are written in simple formats in order to provide efficiency,
depending on the type of issue the length of policy is stated.
Not every issue at workplace requires a policy some of them can be addressed via routine
workplace procedure and places.

3.1.1 Benefits of Organizational Policies:

 It should be in-line with organizational values

 it should always be complaint with employment and associated legal
requirement
 Itprovide proper clarity on roles and responsibilities
 It ensures that an organization operates efficiently and in specified business
manner
  It helps in strengthening the staff position during or in legal situation
 It enforce consistency and uniformity in operational procedure and in decision
making
 It saves time of the employees when problems can be resolved fastly
effectively through the existing policy
 It provides a framework to different business planning
 It maintains the organizational direction or structure in times of changes in
period

3.1.2 Types of organizational or workplace policies:

a) Workplace health and safety policy

b) Non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies
c) Equal opportunity policy
d) Employee code of conduct policy
e) Leave policy
f) Employee time stamping policy
g) Employee disciplinary and termination policy
h) Employee grievance policy
i) Social media policy
j) E-mail policy
k) Mobile phone policy

a) Workplace health and safety policy

It is very important for an employer to provide safe and healthy work environments to
their employees, since the hazard come without alarming anybody about the risks, and
can cause harm to your employees as well as it can also affect the cost of the business
money and can damage your reputation as well.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has prepared some of
the guidelines on how to create a healthy and safe work environment on the
workplace in order to protect their employees from organization or workplace hazard
on which your policy is based.

b) Non-discrimination and Anti-harassment policy

It is very important organizational policy at every workplace. The principle behind

this policy is it provides guarantee that the human rights are exercised without any
discrimination against individuals based on their race, colour, gender, age, language,
national origin, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, property, marital status
and family status, citizenship etc.
Every workplace organization prohibits the harassment of any kind, including of
sexual harassment as well, and the authorized person will take necessary and
appropriate actions in response for any type of complaints file against these policies.
The propose of this policy is to inhibit any kind of harassment whether it could be
verbal or non verbal or any kind of physical conduct are designed to threaten the co-
workers, or to intimidate the employee, or any person working on behalf.
 Examples of Harassment:

 Verbal Harassment - It includes inappropriate comments which are

offensive in nature and are not welcomed by a person’s national origin,
colour, caste, religion, disability, gender identity, race, and negative
stereotyping etc.

 Nonverbal Harassment – It includes the distribution, discussion and

displays written in any form of graphic that insults and show unhealthy
behaviour towards a group or individual because of race, colour, religion, age,
sexual orientation, appearance, disability or marital status.

 Sexual Harassment – It occurs when unsolicited and unwelcome sexual

advances, request for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of
sexual nature.

c) Equal opportunity policy

This policy ensures employees are hired irrespective of their gender, religion, colour,
age, caste, marital status, physical ability it also enforce that candidates are appointed
based on their qualification and capabilities. It is an legal requirement according to
labour law in India and many other countries that equal opportunity is given
irrespective of any kind of discrimination.

d) Employee code of conduct policy

The policy sets the guidelines for all the employees and various stake holderswhich
they are expected to follow in their professional and personal behaviour at workplace.
This policy must be designed in line with business ethics, values and company’s
objective.

e) Leave policy

This policy recognise that employee requires time-off from work in order to maintain
the work life balance. It also understand the various other need like personal
commitment, medical exigencies, relax time etc of the employee. Various types of
leaves are – Annual leaves, Medical Leaves, Child care leaves, Maternity leaves (for
women), Compensatory off, Leaves without pay etc.

f) Employee time stamping policy

This policy describes the rules and regulations related to working hours of an
employee. It also help the guidelines related to reporting time, work duration/hours
and break time.

g) Employee disciplinary and termination policy

The prime objective of this policy is to define the procedure and protocols in case of any
breach of companies policy or employee mis conduct or any in-disciplinary behaviour.
This is the sub-set of Employees code of Conduct policy.
 h) Employee grievance policy

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that every employee has a formal way to raise
their concern or complaint to the senior management. It has the clear structure and
point of contact details in case any employee wants to raise a concern. For an
employer it is necessary to ensure that identity of the employee is safeguarded who is
raising the concern.

i) Social media policy

It is expected from every employee engaging or involved in social media like

facebook, Instagram, twitter, linkedin and several other similar platforms to
understand and follow the guidelines as described if their action or engagement
involves the company name. Failing to do so can put their employment with the
company at risk.

j) E-mail policy

This policy describes the guidelines and uses of corporate e-mails to meet business
requirement. One should follow the corporate standards including copyrights, logos
and signatures while sending the e-mail within or outside the organization.

k) Mobile phone policy

Summarize
Why are company policies important?
Company policies put in writing what you expect from your employees. These may be related
to performance, values or behavior. Additionally, company policies can serve as pre-
warnings for employees, since they outline the consequences of failing to abide by the rules.
 
Company policies are important for a variety of other reasons, including:

a) Setting expectations
b) Keeping management accountable
c) Ensuring compliance with the law
d) Helping defend against legal claims
e) Assisting with fair treatment of employees

Unit 3.2Legislations, standard, policies, andprocedures

Unit Objectives

At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

2. List the Legislations, standard, policies, and procedures

Relevant workplace laws take precedence over workplace policy. If an employee commits an act
that is in breach of their employer’s code of conduct, but is protected under law, there are grounds
for an unfair dismissal claim.
A number of high-profile cases illustrate this issue. A marine scientist who was sacked for making
disparaging comments about his workmates and employer, James Cook University, won an appeal
for unfair dismissal. The court found that laws protecting intellectual freedom took precedence over
the University’s code of conduct.
Angela Williamson launched a legal challenge against Cricket Australia after she was sacked for
writing a series of critical tweets about the Tasmanian government and its abortion policy.
Williamson claimed that she was fired for expressing a political opinion – not a sackable offence.
After making national headlines, the matter was eventually settled out of court.

Unit 3.3 Reporting Structure

Unit Objectives
At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

3. Analyze the reporting structure

Reporting structure refers to the relationship between the employees position in terms of
authority - who reports to whom. The employer establishes and manages the employee who is
in charge of the different tasks or departmental area and the organization aswhole.
In reporting structure every employee reports to another employee who is at one level higher
authority or position within the organisation.

3.1.1 Types of reporting structure

1. Vertical Structurethe vertical organizational structure creates a power of hierarchical

structure that emerges from the top to bottom. Every employee has an authority to do
their individual task or jobs, so they are at the bottom of hierarchy. Every employee
has to report to their supervisors in case of any issues which can be resolved by their
middle managers, who may themselves also requires some supervision from their
managers too. In this process employees can clearly monitor themselves for their
provided tasks, roles and duties. The vertical structure builds up the relationship
between the reporting structure and chain of commands.

2. Horizontal Structure the flat structure or horizontal structure is an organizational

structure has only a few layers of management into which managers have a very wide
span to control with one or more subordinates, it does not have many chains of
command.The top layer of the structure is the owner of the business, whereas the
second layer contains team leader or managers who will report the business owner.
The third layer of team members are supervised by the team leaders or the managers
of the second layer.
Without going complicated through hierarchies, the horizontal structure of
organization has eliminated the middle management levels in order to consider the
employee as centeredwith encouraging them for collaborations and teamwork.
Through this procedure the employees will be having more contact with managers and
with business owners.

3.1.2 Steps to follow while developing the workplace policies

Step 1- It seek management approval while creating or modifying the policies.

Step 2- Take feedback from the staff.

Step 3- Explain the key words and terms of the policy at the beginning to make it
understandable for the employees.

Step 4- Publish the policy in easily understandable languages.

Step 5-Conduct various training sessions to ensure each employee understood the policy
well.

Step 6-Ensure proper implementation of policies.

Step 7-Review and updatethe policy at regular interval.

Summary

Creating the Right Types of Reporting Relationships

A small-business owner establishes reporting structure as the final step in organizational

design. She builds the best structure by first considering the company’s strategic goals and
mission and then listing all the tasks needed to accomplish the necessary work. The owner
sorts, classifies and groups tasks to create jobs and departments. The work is assigned and
authority delegated. With all the work and roles defined, the owner can set up the
organization’s vertical and horizontal aspects by establishing reporting relationships.

Unit 3.4 Inter-Dependent Functions

Unit Objectives
 At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

4. List the inter-dependent functions

Interdependence is the key aspect to create a healthy work environment and the sense of unity
among the workers to achieve a common organizational goal. Teams or employees working
together demonstrate high chance of success rather than working individually. It also ensure
the everyone is in line with the company’s overall progress and working towards the same
objective.
Interdependence develops a sense of unity and team working spirit among the various
departments and its associated employees. Interdependence is one of the six universal
collaboratives principles that grows and develop the community and the team spirit, this
includes high level of team members service to one or anothers’s success.
It also involves:
 Respect of each others skill and talents.
 Personal responsibility for personal development and growth.
 Positive self esteem and emotional maturity.
 Respect of skill which team leader put on the table.
 Relay on each others strength when required.
 Confidence that team memeber has best for you.
 Leadership that ensures growth, development and success of employee.

As stated earlier, Interdependence is one of six researched principles that measurably build
cooperation and collaboration in the workplace. Behaviors that support Interdependence
result in high performance outcomes for organizations.  Interdependence is highly correlated
with the other five TIGERS® principles required for high performance work cultures.  The
other five principles are trust, genuineness, empathy, risk and success.  Improvements in team
interdependence will also increase improvements in the other principles. As a collaborative
principle that builds cooperation in the workplace, interdependence is a team culture
workhorse.
Behaviors that foster the TIGERS principle of interdependence include:
 Respect for the different ways people think, learn and process information and using
these qualities for maximum benefit to operations, planning and employee achievement.
 Self-awareness and appreciation for others company-wide.
 Intolerance for manipulation and coercion.
 Responsibility and accountability among all team members.
 Win-win problem-solving and the reduction in win-lose and lose-lose conflict
solutions.
 Appreciation for diversity.
Some behaviors to watch out for that damage interdependence are:
 Lack of attention to group process that undermines the contributions of thoughtful,
context-oriented, and analytical team members.
 Lack of attention to the innate skills employees bring to the table for planning,
complex problem-solving and execution.
 Internal competition for rewards and recognition.
 Manipulation, coercion and inappropriate use of power.
 Command and control leadership practices when creativity, innovation and change are
desired initiatives.
 Groupthink and intolerance for differences.
 Repeated attempts to change people rather than systems.
 Allowing only leaders to solve problems.
 Allowing only leaders to generate ideas.
 Allowing an “Us and Them” attitude to divide the workplace.
Organizations that screen heavily during employment interviews to identify behaviors that
build effective interdependence tend to hire people with an innate capacity to foster team
spirit. The benefit is lower employee turnover and much higher team cohesiveness.
According to research by Pew Social Trends, the number of workers in occupations requiring
average to above-average education, training and experience with interdependence skills
increased from 49 million in 1980 to 83 million in 2015, or by 68%. As automation
technology and artificial intelligence increase, this trend will continue to rise indicating that
workplace interdependence is a culture change directive. This is because technology is
replacing low level skills and higher level and more interdependent skills are now and will be
required for team interactions.
Start with a “Thank You” to improve interdependence
One area that Google has right in the interdependence department is employee recognition. 
This includes events employees are involved in that aren’t necessarily work related. For
example, when an employee brings snacks for an early morning meeting, recognize that.
Leaders who understand the importance of recognizing their employees for all of their
contributions whether it is a great idea for their current project or bringing in home-baked
goods for their coworkers spark more cooperation and sharing.  When employees make an
effort to make the workplace a great place to be, this is a windfall for leaders.  When
cooperation is seen recognize it and it will grow.
When team members thank one another and recognize each other’s contributions,
interdependence is also strengthened. The entire workforce becomes happier and more
productive, making your workplace a great place to be.
Interdependence review for take-away
 Interdependence is one of the six principles required for building high performance
organizations.  It is the principle that builds cooperation in the workplace in order for your
work  culture to thrive.
 Interdependence is the universal collaborative principle  that grows and develops from
a sense of community and the spirit of employee support.
 Because interdependence is highly correlated with the other five TIGERS principles
— trust, genuineness, empathy, risk and success —  any improvements that you make in this
area will positively affect the other principles as well.
Interdependence is crucial for the success of any team or organizational culture and there are
identifiable and measurable behaviors that foster a strong sense of interdependence in your
workplace. If your culture is weak in interdependence, start with a focus on gratitude and
recognition. When employees feel recognized for their contributions, they are happier and
more productive in their roles. An added benefit is that you organization will experience
higher employee retention, too.  A work culture that focuses on interdependence is sure to
improve talent retention.

Unit 3.5 Harassment and Discrimination

Unit Objectives

At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

5. List the harassment and discrimination

Any objectionable behaviour of someone towards any individual during professional or

personal communication whether verbal or non-verbal refers to as harassment. Recently
workplace harassment is gaining much interest among researcher because workplace is
considered to be as a most sensitive area in terms of stress, aggression, molestation and
abusive behaviour on workplace.
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) under this law workplace harassment and threatening
are identified as the psychosocial hazard. The types of harassment or workplace bullying can
be categorized into physical and emotional abuse, as they target various groups, including
men, women, disabled persons, racial minorities and immigrants.
According to this Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) law there is no
prohibition of casual comments, or simple teasing, or incidents that are not very
offensive/serious in nature. Harassment is illegal if its done frequently and can serve or create
offensive work environment for the employees.

Harassment can include behaviour such as:

 Telling abusive jokes about particular group of members.

 Forwarding obvious or sexually suggestive emails or texts.
 Making disrespectful comments or taunts about person’s appearance and disability.
 Asking unwanted questions about somone’s life.
 Displaying ethnic offensive screen savers.

Discrimination refers to a treatment when one person or a group of members are treated
unfairly based on factors such as race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, and
disability these all factors are protected as anti-discrimination laws. Discrimination is
expressed through harassment for example if a manager, or supervisor, or co-worker says or
does something that creates aggressive or threatening work environment.

Discrimination that occurs in the workplace are of different types:

It occurs when individual is discriminated against the number of factors. In addition to the
reasons job applicants and worker are also discriminated because of their relationship with
other person.

Different types of workplace discrimination are;

 Gender Discrimination Employer must give equal salaries to men and women
equally, it is illegal to pay both women and men differently based on their gender.

 Age All employees must receive the same amount of benefits regardless of their age.
  Race It occurs when an employee or any job applicant is treated unlikely, because
they are of certain race or personal characteristics associated with it.

 Skin colour It occurs when someone is treated unfavourably for their skin colour
complexion.

 Mental and physical disability It occurs when the applicant is rejected due to its
disabilities or to penalize the disabled worker for their disabilities. Employers must
change the schedule by making some physical changes to the workplace.

 Genetic information it occurs when employer fires an individual for being

transgender or gay.

 Religion It occurs when the individuals are discriminated based on their religion.

 Pregnancy and parenthood it occurs when the employer does not handle the
pregnancy as temporary illness or other non permanent condition.

Summary

Consideration

There never will be a cure for discrimination; however, employers can educate employees
on the illegality of discriminatory treatment. An understanding of differences in race,
culture, sex, national origin and other factors that are separate from job qualifications will
help prevent some instances of discrimination. An employer’s responsibility is to provide a
safe workplace, free from harassment and discrimination.

Unit 3.6 Prioritising Tasks

Unit Objectives

At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

6. List the harassment and discrimination

Prioritizing task or work is a process of determining which task should be achieved first on
the basis of their importance. However each task or work is equally important, but when an
employee or worker have a huge amount of work to complete each day, they need to
calculate which task is more important, by understanding the tasks best way posssible
employees can prioritize their task well on the workplace. Prioritization also helps employee
to attain more work or task in less time, and to meet deadlines and have much time to finish
huge tasks.
Usually people starts to work on tasks with ease, with the purpose of being productive but as the
day ends, they find other urgent tasks or work resulting in the increased growth of work list.
It is very important for employees and workers to prioritize their work in order to be productive
rather than reactive will indirectly increase the productivity of the work.

How to Prioritize Task on Workplace When Everything’s Important

Seven strategies for prioritizing tasks at workplace:

1. Having a list that contains all tasks or works in one place

2. Identify what’s important
3. Highlight what’s is necessary
4. Prioritize based on importance
5. Avoid competing with priorities
6. Consideration of efforts made in tasks

1. Having a list that contains all tasks or works in one place

In this step the employee has to arrange or gather types of work and create a task list in order to
prioritize tasks according to their urgency. Once the task is achieved by the employee it listed on
one place with some additional information such as level of urgency, amount of time it took to
complete the task and due dates, applying this on one place will provide employees the overall
view of how much work they are dealing, what needs to be done. Assembling everything together
is the major step of prioritizing task because if these are organized well in beginning of the task, it
is easy for employee or workers to stay organized for longer period of time.

2. Identify what’s important

In this step the employee has to decide which task is more crucial and are on top of the to-do list, it
could be determined based on the co-workers request, organization expectations and the deadline
to meet based on type of work.
In time management strategy, prioritization of work must be done in order to achieve long term
goals.

3. Highlight what’s is necessary

 In this step the employees have to prepare to-do list which provides full visibility of
deadlines, thus helping workers to identify which task may be completed spontaneously
and to plan according to future requirement. By creating deadlines even when they are not
required is also important, because it will push back the important task as they are not time
bound. This strategy can help in increased productivity, growth and reducing delayed
timelines.

4. Prioritize based on importance

It is necessary for employees to prioritize work accordingly in order to increase the growth and
productivity, which results in better management of time resulting in confident attitude towards the
deadline.

Based on the importance tasks or work can be categorized as:

 Urgent and important tasks should be done on first basis.

 Important but not urgent work should be blocked off time from the calendar to get this
done without obtrusion.
 Urgent but not important are the type of tasks which sap the energy and time both without
contributing any benefits, these types of tasks keeps employee busy and in result they
provide no real value.
 Neither urgent nor important these types of tasks should be removed from the checklist.
. 
5. Avoid competing with priorities

In this step the employees and the workers use to work on a particularly different task which is
relatively easy to manage but as the difficulty increases it research shows that persons who are in
position of power must prioritize their task in single goal, whereas people with low power position
require multiple attempts to achieve their goal, the dual strategy is linked in order to decline the
performance, resulting in the most important task are not fulfilled at good condition.

6. Consideration of efforts made in tasks

In this step the employees are introduced with strategy plan to overcome the task, it involves
evaluating the tasks according to the requirement to complete them. If the checklist becomes
too hard or long, prioritize those tasks which require minimum time in order to finish or
move them quickly, which results in clearing the task will give employee some sense of
achievement or time to relax or to drive throughout the day.

Unit 3.7 Communication skills

Unit Objectives

At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

7. List the harassment and discrimination

Communication skill refers to the ability of how to communicate effectively with mangers,
colleagues and staff. It is very essential part for every industry, through which employee who
work in digital area must know how convey and receive message with co-worker as well as
via phone, email, or social media. Having good communication skill can lead employees or
workers to become successful in their career as well as for the company growth. Productive
communication skill on workplace can reduce the conflicts, lower the risk of projects
indirectly and thus makes work more agreeable. It also plays very crucial role in building
team and groups finding the best in all employees. As team member has to be clear about
their duties and role. Keeping things upto ourselves is going to provide stess to oneself and
can create confusion later. If your co-worker has done something wrong regarding work and
its need to be corrected do not feel shy to correct them, instead of criticizing or shouting at
co-worker, communicate and convince in a manner to relize their mistake.

In today’s scenario having technical skill is not only enough to get work done on workplace,
it does not depend on employee or employer how best your work is, the career will thrive
based on their soft skill. Along with that you can’t avoid communicating in the workplace or
organization via in person, on call or on screen, completing task must require support of
whole team and without the proper communication, things will remain under stringent.

To get better communication on the workplace communication skills are absolutely

necessary for successful communication in the workplace or for private life.

 Body Language

When we discuss about the body language, it means how we present ourselves when
interacting with anyone, it includes body posture, hand movements or gestures, type
of eye contact we make, the tone of our voice these all plays major role when we try
to convey ourselves to others.
An approachable voice with friendly tone will give comfort to everyone to speak with
you without any hesitation. Keeping or maintaining eye contact is very important
while conveying it establishes that you are very focused on the conversation. Along
with it is also important to understand non-verbal signs are also a kind of
communication it includes facial expression, nodding, eye contact etc to identify how
a person is feeling while interacting.

 Listening

Communication on workplace is not all about speaking, it is a two way channel. If

one is speaking the other one has to listen, nobody likes a person who just talk and
does not listen what others have to say.
One has to pay close attention while talking, this allows team memebers to ask and
clarify their doubts and questions to ensure they are on the same page or track. A
good listener is one of the best ways to be a best communicator.
  Clarity and Conciseness

One of the major ingredient for effective communication on the workplace is clarity,
try to convey your message in a simple way possible. If other can’t be able to
understand what you are saying, it will disinterest people and they won’t listen you.
Saying things with clarity will keep the message short and easy to understand what
you want to say, it saves the time and results in increased growth and productivity.

 Friendliness

In order to engage with team member in an open or honest discussion you need a
friendly tone, a personal question, or simply a smile. It is important because the team
members will directly contact you as you are eaisly approachable for the
conversation. They will come to talk to you regarding everything be it professional or
personal. It is important to be nice and polite in all your workplace communications.
This is important in both face-to-face and written communication, as it can be
implemented in different modes of communication including of email and text
messages etc.

 Empathy

Showing compasion or empathy even when you disagree with an employer,

coworker,or employee it is very important to understand their point of view and
respect their decision. It is not all about the work and tasks.

Follow theses three aspects in mind for being empathetic: 

 One should treat colleagues and staff like the way you would like to be treated.
 One should never critize each other rather than understand their situation and act in a
positive manner.
 One should listen them carefully not for the sake of just listening, imagine yourself in
their shoes and react accordingly.

The colleagues and staffs should be considered as a family, it is duty of an employer to show
empathy in order to develop a strong bond between them.

 Confidence

It is an important step to be confident when you interact with others as, if not people
will not take you seriously or they will not follow your instructions, one needs to be
very confident about what they say by doing this coworkers or staff would believe and
will listen you. Do not sound aggressive or arrogant, avoid making statements that
looks like question for e.g, of course, be careful etc.

 Respect
 One should respect each others roles and ideas in order to achieve goal as a team, a team
of memebers would incorporate different talent realted to their fields. Staff or co-workers
would be more open to communicate with you if you convey respect and support towards
them. Employers can make them feel overwhelmed by just making an eye contact, or by
using persons name, and actively listening to them. While talking on phone call avoid
distraction and one must stay focused on the conversation. Convey them with respect
through email by taking the time to edit your message. If you will send them a sloppy
written, confusing email, the recipient will think you do not respect them enough to think
through your communication.

Steps to Effectively Communicate with your Team Members

It depends on what they said and how it is used to be said. A team which communicates well
has the ability to eliminate the possibilities of any misinterpretation, in order to develop a
healthy and peaceful environment to work.

Ways to incorporate effective communication in the workplace with your team are:

 Should have open meetings with your team every week. This will ensures that
everybody is on the same page and clears out any mistakes if there are any.
 Email is a great type communication platform for office settings that enables them to
pass personalized messages to their colleagues. 
 Some people understand better on one-on-one basis, encourge them to talk out.
 Avoid tense environments and create a peaceful atmosphere for work.
 According to the seriousness of the work or topic, make your conversations. You
don’t have to be serious all the time. Sometimes, light conversations do cheer up the
workforce. 
 Talk in a easy language that others could understand. Use of some simple vocabulary
and sentences. It does not matter how you talk as long as others understand you
clearly.  
 Use visuals and presentations while communicating technical aspects of the work or
project. This gives them room for a better understanding.  

The following are the benefits of good communication: 

 Good communication will always result in a more productive and talented workforce
which will ultimately lead to better business outcomes.
 Effective communication would improve client relationships which is another
imperative aspect for growing your business.
 Communication plays a crucial role in employee engagement, allowing them to better
align with company goals and objectives. 
 Communicating effectively at the workplace reduces conflicts among employees and
team members.  

Summarize
 Conclusion 

Effective communication in the workplace is the cornerstone of team development, employee

engagement, innovative thought processing, and company culture. Further, it is integral to
maintaining client relationships and generating sales. Strong communication skills not only
create a positive experience but also help leadership skills. As we referenced above,
communication is the key to success, and everyone including the employers must work on
polishing this skill. 

 
Unit 3.8 Teamwork

Unit Objectives

At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

8. List the teamwork

Teamwork is a cumulative effort done by team or a group of members in order to achieve

common goal or to complete a given work or task in a most effective and powerful way.
Good teamwork helps us to build a strong relationships as well as it provides morale in the
workplace, which makes worker more productive and resulting in increased profits.

Some organizations that have excellent teamwork and group of peoples, in their case problem
solving easier as compared with different peoples having different skills and knowledge
which work together to create a better output or solution. Without having a good team or
group of members it is difficult to progress and in decreased productivity which in turn can
lead to loss of stagnation and loss of share market.

Employees can work together and produce a great results in better growth and productivity

Tips to improve teamwork in the organization:

1. Encourage informal social events

Although formal team building events are encouraged in certain HR manuals

(even virtual team building activities), a simple Google search for “bad team building
experiences” will provide you with a litany of horrors. From bathing naked with
managers to nearly being trampled to death by horses, there are limitless stories online
of employees being coerced into doing things they don’t want to do.
There are some great ways to overcome team building challenges. But, forcing people to
participate in compulsory team building activities is, ironically, detrimental to good
teamwork. What’s fun for an HR manager might be degrading for an employee, and the last
thing you should want is for resentment to grow among your staff.

Instead of imposing team building from the top down like a ruthless dictator, it’s more
effective to allow teams to build organically. Plenty of people would have a problem with
being forced to perform a humiliating haka in imitation of the New Zealand rugby team, but
most people are okay with a glass of wine and a nice meal at a restaurant.

In low-pressure, informal surroundings, team members can get to know each other and form
bonds which will carry over into the office.

Instead of budgeting for elaborate team building events, you can budget for low key social
meet ups. This will save you a lot of money and will produce better results in terms of
teamwork and morale.
2. Clarify Roles
If there is any ambiguity regarding roles and responsibilities, it’s impossible for people to
work together effectively. Even worse, you may end up with situations where workers are
unfairly delegating their work to others – which creates resentment.

To combat this, it’s important for roles and responsibilities to be clearly documented. This
documentation should be available for all to see via the organization’s intranet, so people can
refer back to it if there is a clash of opinions regarding obligations.

To avoid confusion, each new employee should be referred to this document as part of
their onboarding process. This is especially important when onboarding remote workers,
since they won’t have the option of face-to-face communication to clear up any immediate
questions regarding responsibilities.

While it’s not essential for workers to know the exact responsibilities of every person in the
organization, workers should be crystal clear about the responsibilities of their immediate
team mates.

You may wish to create a handbook for each team in the organization, detailing objectives,
roles, and projects. For common tasks which involve multiple team members, workflow
images help greatly in clarifying how and when each individual should contribute.

For example, this workflow image from the internal handbook of an infographic design
agencydescribes the process involved in creating an infographic. It clearly indicates when the
content writer, editor, and designer should contribute to the project.

3. Specify Goals
All employees should be clear on the long-term goals of the organization. This should be
covered during the onboarding process for new employees and regular updates should be
made via company meetings.

If the organization doesn’t have clearly defined, measurable goals – then it’s hard to keep
everyone on the same page. If everyone knows that the organization’s goal is to generate 10
million USD in revenue for the year, this will influence all team communications and keep
everyone moving in the same direction.

With goals for the organization clearly stated, you can now set goals for individual teams.

Your content team might have the goal of doubling website traffic and producing two blog
posts per week (which equates to 104 blog posts per year). Because the goals are specific and
measurable, it’s obvious if the team is on track or not.

When you have clear goals to work towards, communications become streamlined and
teamwork becomes purposeful.
4. Reward Excellent Teamwork
One of the best ways to build camaraderie in the workplace is to give formal recognition for
employee achievements. One of the best things to praise your employees for is excellent
teamwork.

If an individual goes above and beyond their role to help the organization as a whole, ensure
that they feel appreciated for their efforts. Also remember to appreciate employees who go
out of their way to help others in need, even if this doesn’t correlate with business goals.

Showing gratitude for altruistic behavior is an excellent way to create an awesome, friendly
culture. When you have a workplace where people are rewarded for helping one another,
teamwork will naturally improve.

Recognition can come in the form of kind words from a direct manager, or perhaps a photo in
the company’s internal newsletter with a description of the achievement.

5. Don’t Micro-manage
If you treat your employees like children who can’t be expected to work like unsupervised
adults, don’t expect them to work together like an effective team! In order for teamwork to
flourish, respect is required.

It’s important to specify goals, set deadlines and give employees all the tools they need to
perform to the best of their abilities, but when you micro manage, employees will be less
inclined to work effectively and more inclined to do what’s required to please their direct
manager.

Even if an employee is fully committed to the organization, they will never perform to the
best of their abilities if they have someone breathing down their neck.

As an alternative to micromanaging, build a culture of trust, respect and honesty. If you

create a wonderful culture, teamwork will naturally flourish.

6. Establish Effective Communications

Your workers don’t have to become best friends in order to work effectively with one
another, but practicing good communication is important.

From a practical perspective, you can improve workplace communications by publishing

an official communications policy and introducing new employees to it during their
onboarding process. This policy should mention ideal channels of communication for specific
scenarios, how to communicate with people who’re not native English speakers, why you
should avoid technical jargon and so forth.
From a cultural perspective, the management team should lead by example and demonstrate
good communication. A great way to do this is to encourage managers to listen carefully to
their subordinates and solicit honest feedback.

If managers are behaving in ways that make life difficult for their teams, but people are too
scared to speak up due to the risk of being fired – this will create a problem. In order for a
team to work together, communications need to be open and genuine.

In a survey of workers in the United Kingdom, 42% stated they have left a job in the past
because of a bad manager. Encouraging feedback helps to improve communications but also
reduces employee turnover.

If your managers can’t take honest criticisms without feeling personally attacked, they may
not be suitable for managerial roles!

7. Celebrate Individuality
Remember the saying: “there is no “I” in team”? This philosophy would be appropriate in the
industrial era when workers were replaceable and all processes were systemized.

Denying the individuality of your workers is a bad idea if you want to keep them engaged.
People have different personality types, skills and preferred ways of working.

In a study by Aachen University in Germany, it was found that 10% of people are early
risers, 20% of people are true night owls and the other 70% fall somewhere in the middle.
Despite evidence that genetics play a significant role in our body clocks, most organizations
are tailored to early risers.

Similarly, ask any introverted employee what they think about working in an open-plan office
and you’re likely to get a brutal response.

Ironically, forcing everyone to work in the same open-plan office environment, on the same
time schedule is not going to improve teamwork. When you allow employees to work in the
ways that make them the most productive, teamwork will naturally improve.

Encouraging flexible working practices such as remote work, creating quiet

workspaces within your office and respecting the individuality of each worker will help to
boost engagement, teamwork and employee retention.

8. Use Project Management Tools

Embracing flexible working practices can dramatically improve teamwork, but only if you
use the right tools.

Fortunately, with tools such as Zoho

Projects, Basecamp, Asana, Hubgets, Slack and LiquidPlanner, your team members can
communicate and collaborate effectively without the need for face-to-face interactions.
While email and instant messaging can be great for keeping people on the same page, you
might want to host a weekly video conference so that team members can communicate via a
more intimate channel.

Check out our comprehensive list of project management tools.

9. Get Feedback From Everyone

Oftentimes, great ideas can come from unexpected places. In order to achieve the long-term
goals of the business, it’s wise to solicit ideas and feedback from all roles within the
organization – from the receptionist to the CEO.

Brainstorming sessions can be great for generating ideas, but there are some disadvantages.
Sometimes, the people who provide the most contribution are the ones who’re naturally
outgoing and talkative – rather than the ones with the best ideas!

To solve this, open as many feedback channels as possible. Some employees will deliver
excellent insights during one-to-one meetings with their managers, whereas others may prefer
to voice their opinions using an anonymous feedback box.

If everyone within the organization can deliver meaningful feedback using their preferred
channel, and it’s obvious that management takes this feedback seriously and makes
appropriate changes – this creates an excellent workplace culture where everyone feels
valued.

When people feel valued, they work together more effectively.

10. Hire Wisely

Most organizations suffer from terrible, ineffective hiring processes. Ultimately, your hiring
process should be used to predict how well a new recruit will help your business to achieve
its long-term vision.

Instead, interviews usually accomplish very little other than making the interviewer feel
superior by asking ridiculous questions such as: “If you were to get rid of one state in the
U.S., which would it be and why?”

While it’s time most organizations completely overhauled their hiring process, one
incremental improvement would be to involve more team members that the new hire is set to
work with.

Your HR manager may be looking for very different criteria than the new recruit’s team
members. If a person ticks all the boxes in terms of skills and culture, but there are potential
personality clashes with team members, this will do more harm than good when the new
employee arrives.
Every person that a new hire works with on a daily basis should be able to voice their opinion
regarding the hiring process – not just the recruit’s direct manager.

Conclusion
Teamwork isn’t something that we can forcefully impose upon our workers. Instead, good
teamwork will naturally occur when there is a healthy workplace culture, where employees
are treated as individuals and open communication is celebrated.

There’s no need to be dogmatic and stick to management principles that were effective 100
years ago. By taking whatever steps are necessary to get the most out of each employee as an
individual, you will also get the best performance from your teams.

Unit 3.9 Ethics and Descipline

Unit Objectives

At the end of this module the participant will be able to:

9. List the harassment and discrimination

Workplace ethics are the set of values, moral principles, and standards that need to be followed by
both employers and employees in the workplace. It is the set of rules and regulations that need to be
followed by all staff of the workplace.

These ethics are implemented by employers to foster both employee-employee relationship and
employee-customer relationships. An organization may decide to put these ethics into writing or not
—they are however meant to be followed. 

There exist some general workplace ethics that do not need to be defined by the employer, but are
common ethical behaviors employees need to exhibit. In the same vein, some organization-specific
ethics may need to be defined in a company handbook.

Examples of ethical behaviors in the workplace includes; obeying the company's rules,

effective communication, taking responsibility, accountability, professionalism, trust and
mutual respect for your colleagues at work. These examples of ethical behaviors ensures
maximum productivity output at work.
Examples of Ethical Behaviors in The Workplace 
Examples of ethical behaviors in the workplace includes; obeying the company's rules, effective
communication, taking responsibility, accountability, professionalism, trust and mutual respect for
your colleagues at work. These examples of ethical behaviors ensures maximum productivity output
at work. And could be pivotal for career growth.

 Obey The Company’s Rules & Regulation

 At the start of an employee contract, companies may need the employee to sign various documents,
including the company rules and regulation agreement form. Also, the employee may be given a
handbook that may serve as a guide.

Some common rules are tardiness, inappropriate dressing, and language, etc. Due to the excitement of
getting a new job, some employees do not properly read these rules and may end up deferring them in
the future.

Therefore, it is important that new employees properly read these rules & regulations in other not to
defer them.

 Communicate Effectively

Effective communication is very important to avoid misunderstandings when dealing with issues in
the workplace. Communicating effectively may mean different things to people at different points in
time.

Let us consider the hypothetical situation of an employee trying to relay information to a French-
speaking customer. The best way to communicate effectively with the customer is to have an
employee who can speak French relay the information. 

Effective communication may also have an employee breaking one of the rules and regulations of the
company without getting penalized for it. An employee reaching out to HR that they will be coming
in late due to some unforeseen circumstances may be spared for coming late if the situation is
properly communicated. 
  Develop Professional Relationships

Good professional relationships are not only a thing that fosters teamwork among employees, but also
help with individual career development for employees. Developing professional relationships with
coworkers or other professionals outside the workplace will also directly or indirectly improve
productivity. 

Professional relationships between low-level and high-level employees will make it easier for ideas to
be shared and knowledge to be passed to junior employees. That way, the company can confidently
have an intern work on a tough project to meet a pending deadline due to the guidance from older
employees.

Salespeople, for one, need to build external professional relationships with professionals from other
organizations—especially those who are potential clients. These relationships will help create a
contact person in another organization in case they need to sell a product to them.

 Take Responsibility

 It is important for employees to always take responsibility for decisions made both individually and
in a team. This is, in fact, a leadership trait that every employee who is looking to take up a
managerial position in the future should exhibit.

Understandably, employees may want to save their job and are therefore scared of taking
responsibility for a particular event. However, they shouldn't let this fear take them.out of the team.

For example, the communications team came up with a marketing strategy for the company and it
failed. The team members are to jointly take responsibility for this failure, not individuals coming out
that they weren't part of the decision making process.

If the strategy has gone the other way round, they wouldn't have said the same.

 Professionalism/Standards

There are professional standards that everything an employee does in the workplace. The use of
informal words in a formal workplace is highly unprofessional. 

These standards should be held high and applied to every part of an employee's activity in the
workplace. This should include the way they speak, kind of work they deliver and their relationship
with coworkers and customers.

 Be Accountable

 Accountability is also a very good trait of an employee. One of the things that may short change a
talented and responsible is the lack of accountability. 

Lack of accountability may result in your boss thinking you have an "I don't care attitude" to the
company's project or worst take you as a liar and may lead to job loss in the long run. For example, at
the beginning of each year, a certain amount of money is allocated to each department.

The manager is meant to oversee how this money is spent. If at the end of the year, the manager can
not make an account of how the money was spent, he may then be suspected of stealing company
funds.
  Uphold Trust

An employee should not do anything that may make his or her employee withdraw trust. As an
employee of a company, your employee trusts you to get work done perfectly on time.

Things like missing deadlines regularly or delivering work that needs to be revised over and over
again will deny you a promotion. It may even leave the employer not giving you tasks to complete in
the future—a nightmare for freelancers.

 Show Initiative without being told

Is the company running behind deadline and you feel you can stay a few extra hours after work to
finish up? Do it.

You are a freelance designer and your client wants a particular poster designed but doesn't have a
copywriter to write the content. If you can write the contents, do so. Don't delay a client's work
because of a few contents.

 Respect Your Colleagues

It doesn't matter whether you are dealing with the intern, a junior, janitor, etc. they should all be
treated with respect. As a manager, treating your team members with respect will help improve their
productivity.

Giving constructive criticism and saying kind words to them even when they are not able to deliver
perfectly will help them strive to do better in the future.

 Work Smarter

 Don't just work hard, work smarter. The reason why you see an employee promoted to the post of
manager after just 2 years and a hardworking employee who has been with the company for 10 years
failed to get a promotion is smart work.

Assume that these 2 employees are data scientists who collect data and analyze them. A smarter
employee will use the Formplus data collection tool to collect data and receive real-time data
analytics, while a hard-working employee will print paper-based forms and do the hard work of
sharing it to respondents.

Grievances solutions

The grievances are very harmful and these need proper and timely redressal. If not
then there can be many fold problems in the industry. For proper handling of
grievances there is need for an adequate procedure that can assign the responsibility
step-by-step for effective management of grievances.
Grievance handling procedure is a systematic way of handling the grievances in which
step-wise the responsibility for handling is assigned.
Workplace grievances and staff complaints need time, care and good record keeping. A
grievance can concern an employee’s role, their workplace or even another member of
staff.

Whether you’re an HR professional, an office manager or the owner of the business, your
aim in dealing with the grievance is to resolve the issue quickly and effectively.

To ensure that your employee gets a fair hearing and outcome - and avoid lengthy and
costly employee tribunals -  here are 5 ways to deal with a workplace grievance. 

The managers should take the following steps for prevention/solution of

grievances effectively:
Step # 1. Prompt Action:
As soon as the feelings of dissatisfaction felt the cause of it should be identified and
resolved. The manager expert in grievance handling must be trained for effectively and
timely managing grievances. This would avoid the adverse impacts on employees, their
performance and organisation as well. So the prompt actions are very essential.
Step # 2. Acceptance of Grievances:
The manager must accept the grievances forwarded by the employees and must respect
the true and real feelings of the employees. Acceptance of grievances would bring
confidence in employees implies that the manager is interested for solution of the
grievance without any bias. To some extent the feelings of dissatisfaction would be
reduced and avoid frustration. In turn the working environment would be conducive.
Step # 3. Collection of Information:
Whether the grievances reported or not the management should take the preventive
steps. The approach should be proactive. Before grievances, the management must
develop the practice to interact, discuss, and share, and collect information regarding
different issues of differences. If reported, in this case the information should be
collected timely regarding nature and causes of grievances. This would help in
prevention and redressal of grievances of employees.
Step # 4. Cross Examining the Causes of Grievance:
Once the grievances are reported and information regarding nature and causes of
grievances collected. This information are to be cross-examined. The management
should have the clear understanding regarding causes. Accordingly remedial actions
should be taken immediately to prevent repetition of the grievance and damages further.
Step # 5. Logical Decision Making:
On being identified the causes of grievances, the manager must generate a number of
options for course of action. According to the policies and practices of the industry the
best option is to be identified. The person liking of the managers or individuals should be
avoided in making rational and more effective decision.
Step # 6. Implementation and Review of Decision:
The rational decision the management should not wait for a long time. The concerned
parties should be taken into confidence and implement as early as possible. If not done
so in right time, there is no use of putting the efforts for grievance prevention. Right and
timely decision would be more effective. The decisions should be reviewed time-to-time
to keep in line with the working of the company. Further, grievances can be avoided also.
An effective grievance handling/management process involved these steps would give
the right approach to the grievances. First of the grievance would be checked in the
beginning itself. Secondly, if at all the grievances have taken place despite of sincere
efforts; the grievances would be redressed and would prevent these in future also. These
steps are very essential for effective management of grievances. Under this situation the
employees would ventilate their grievances freely and redressal would become very easy
if at all grievances are reported.

1. Check the grievance procedure

By law, every company needs a formal, written grievance procedure.

This explains:

 who to contact if they have an issue;

 what the grievance procedure process involves; and

 the response times for each stage.

We use the company document's feature on Breathe to safely send and store important
information, like grievance procedures, to our people. It's super easy. Your team are
notified via email as soon as the admin uploads a document. And because each person
needs to click to confirm they have read each file, you'll know when everyone's up to
date.  

Once you've checked the grievance procedure, start talking. Begin with an informal
discussion to understand the issue.
If, after looking and discussing alternative options, there's no resolution, the employee will
need to initiate the formal process by submitting a grievance in writing. 

Minute or record informal meetings too. Not only will this help to keep track of the
complaints, actions and following reactions but it also helps to understand where things
went wrong and what we can do differently next time. 

 
2. Investigate the grievance
Outline how long the investigation will take and contact all mentioned parties. Remember
to include time here for their informal discussions too.

Say the issue involves other members of staff, you'll need to spend equal time with each
member while trying to remain objective as they explain their positions or provide
evidence. 

Once you’ve completed your investigations, you can arrange a grievance hearing. You’ll
need to inform all relevant parties, so that they can make their own preparations.

 
3. Hold a grievance hearing
The next key action is to hold the formal meeting where the employee will set out their
grievance and provide any evidence to back up their case.

 Everyone needs to attend. 

 Employees have the right to bring along a colleague or union representative.

 Ask how they'd like this resolved, what you can do as employer to help and what
outcome they are seeking. 

 Record these formally and send to all parties within the timeframe agreed. 

 
4. Make your decision and inform the employee
After the meeting, you will make your decision. You may decide to uphold the staff
member’s grievance in full or in part, or you may reject it.

If you uphold it, or parts of it, you need to identify the action that will be taken. Write to the
employee, telling them what your decision is.

Explain the reasons for your decision and advise them what actions you will take and what
actions they should take. 

 
5. Further action
If the employee does not accept the decision, they have the right to an appeal. Again, your
policy should outline the appeals process that will be followed when an employee wants to
take the grievance further.

The employee should request in writing that their appeal be heard and inform you what
their grounds for appeal are. Where possible, to provide impartiality, the appeal should be
heard by another manager or director, and one who was not involved in the first meeting. 

At the appeal hearing, you can examine the reasons for the appeal and any new
evidence.

Again, after the hearing, you should write to the employee, informing them of your decision
and the reasons for it. 

If your employee disagrees with your decision, they can pursue mediation or make a claim
to an employment tribunal. 

It’s never nice to have to deal with a workplace grievance. Whatever the cause, and
wherever the blame may lie, at minimum it means that someone within your company is
unhappy. And that's not how to do business well. Following these actions will help you to
resolve the conflict and respond to any problems as quickly and simply as possible.

Interpersonal conflicts

interpersonal conflict in the workplace is a serious matter that every employer and employee will eventually encounter. In an effort to
mitigate the presence of interpersonal conflict in the workplace, it is important to understand the different types that can be found in
the workplace and how to effectively address them. Analyzing examples of interpersonal conflict can be a powerful method by which
an employer or employee may offset the challenges that present themselves and contribute to these sorts of job-related problems. In
this article, we will explain interpersonal conflict in the workplace and discuss potential solutions.

What is interpersonal conflict at work?

Interpersonal conflict is any type of conflict that involves two or more people. In the workplace, interpersonal conflict in the
workplace is defined as a person or group of people who interfere with another person’s attempts at achieving goals or
completing assignments. Resolving this form of conflict in the workplace can help repair working relationships, boost
morale and increase customer satisfaction.

Types of interpersonal conflict

In order to understand interpersonal conflicts and how best to approach a resolution, it’s important to consider every type.
Here are the four types of interpersonal conflicts:

1. Pseudo-conflicts

Pseudo-conflicts arise when two parties want different things and can’t come to an agreement. If two team leaders are
working on a project but one wants everyone to take notes on a computer and the other wants everyone to use pen and paper,
this would be a pseudo-conflict. Their desire to approach a project in two different ways and failing to see eye-to-eye is the
reason for the conflict. Pseudo-conflicts often deal with trivial disagreements that often mask the root of the issue.

2. Policy-related interpersonal conflict

When conflict relates to a decision or situation that involves both parties, it can be called a policy-related interpersonal
conflict. An example would be if a work project was assigned to a couple of employees and one co-worker wanted to
proceed using steps ABC, while the other thought it would make more sense to start with XYZ. When policy-related
interpersonal conflicts arise in the workplace, it is best to try to resolve with a win-win situation or through compromise,
especially when it comes to more trivial matters so that the important concerns of the conflict on both sides are still
addressed.

3. Value-related interpersonal conflicts

Sometimes conflicts occur between two people when they have different underlying value systems. This kind of conflict can
be hard to identify when it first occurs because the people who are in the conflict often think the other party is being
stubborn or disagreeable, wherein they just have different underlying values. One colleague may put such a high value on
their time outside of the office that they refuse to check e-mails or be reachable during non-office hours. Other co-workers
may place a higher value on being available for clients or co-workers. Conflict may arise if a co-worker who values
availability is unable to contact someone who values his or her work-life balance. Value-related interpersonal conflicts are
usually difficult to settle since neither party wants to compromise. It’s often best to agree to disagree.

4. Ego-related interpersonal conflicts

In ego conflicts, losing the argument has the potential to damage a person’s pride. Sometimes ego conflicts arise when a
bunch of little conflicts are left unresolved and pile up. One example of ego-related interpersonal conflict results if one co-
worker is already sensitive about a manager favoring another employee. If the manager then asks both parties for their
opinion, the co-worker who is already sensitive about the manager favoring the other employee might say or do something to
represent his or her bigger feelings about the manager’s favoring. This would escalate the conflict further than the situation
might warrant. It’s best to get to the root of the issue and work toward a resolution.

How to resolve interpersonal conflict in the workplace

While conflicts are likely to occur in the workplace, they can also be preventable. Oftentimes, resolving the issue helps build
stronger relationships and paves the way for future success. Here are some ways to resolve interpersonal conflict:

 Talk it out. Understanding your coworker’s point of view is a common way to resolve interpersonal conflict. Listen
to each other's opinions and viewpoints without talking over each other. Make sure to meet face-to-face and keep
 your conversation goal-oriented.

 Practice active listening. Listen to what the other person has to say without interrupting. This not only displays
empathy but also helps you get to the root of the issue. Asking questions to clarify your understanding of their
concerns will also help them know you’re listening.

 Display empathy. Recognizing your co-worker’s concerns and attentively listening to their frustrations is a great
way to display empathy and show you care. It’s important to understand their feelings and actions in order to
encourage honesty and avoid future conflict.

 Don’t hold grudges. With multiple personalities in the workplace, it’s important to accept what is, forgive and
move on from it. Letting go of grudges will allow you to focus on the positive in the future and keep your focus on
the job.

 Work on your communication skills. There are several methods of improving your communication skills. Some
methods include staying on topic, being mindful of body language and maintaining eye contact. Practicing active
listening is another great way to improve your communication skills.

Example of interpersonal conflict

If an employee receives a raise while another doesn’t, the latter could feel animosity toward the other employee as well as
their supervisor if they feel they work harder at their job than the one who received the raise. In this ego-related interpersonal
conflict, the employee’s pride has been affected and they could feel that their boss favors the other employee. It is possible
the employee’s jealousy or feelings of animosity have been building through the years and that their sentiments could lead to
spiteful action on their behalf. Under these circumstances, it’s best to address the underlying issue in order to resolve any
hurt feelings and further conflict.

Work-related interpersonal conflicts can be as complicated. Because there are so many personality characteristics, leadership
styles, job responsibilities and ways in which people interact with one another, interpersonal conflicts will always be
something we must continue to learn to resolve in the workplace. Working on your interpersonal skills will help prevent this
sort of workplace conflict in the future.