Globally, emerging trends in the types of conflict and industrial sanctions costs companies an estimated $500+ billions in annual revenue.
A workplace conflict is a dispute amongst the workers, OR between employees and their employer. These may arise from clashing personal interests, poor working conditions / policies, change, pays & benefits, or collective employment laws.
Industrial sanctions are any actions of workers (or trade unions) that build pressure on employers during a labor dispute. For example, a finely-tuned collective bargaining agreement can help workers to negotiate the best deal out of a strike.
Emerging Types of Workplace Conflicts
The top four modern sources of workplace disputes include:
1. Increased Emphasis on Diversity and Inclusion
DEI initiatives are currently the second largest contributors to workplace frictions. A rainbow of cultures breed racial, religious, gender, and sexual discrimination, intolerance, biases, or outright harassment. Employers harbor different expectations from across the many generations under their employment which can lead to consistent friction.
2. Creative Conflicts
Whenever people work on projects, disagreements regarding the authenticity, applicability, reliability, or creativity of an idea shall surface. Trouble starts when the crowd critiques you, oftentimes escalating to shouting matches or toxic competition.
3. Non-traditional Employment Relationships
Non-traditional job models like virtual working, gig work, and the rising number of hybrid workers are fertile epicenters of workplace disputes. The newest issues of contention relate to labor classification, employment rights, and collective bargaining.
4. Work Style Conflicts
Nerves go raw while waiting on someone to finish their end of a task so you can begin with yours. The conflict is always with their time management, a clumsy approach, or their general work ethic.
Trending Industrial Sanctions
Today, workers are more likely to use these trending industrial sanctions:
★ Technology and Social Media Mobilization
There’s a rising use of fast technology – especially social media platforms – in nudging and efficiently organizing employees for industrial actions.
★ Localized Strikes
Due to the retention of workers in small, decentralized workplaces, they’ll nowadays organize strikes at a local level. As multinationals increase beyond continents, workers’ associations and trade unions make coalitions to tackle job issues on a global scale.
How HR can Avoid Conflicts
HR can mitigate workplace conflicts by setting and effectively communicating concise job expectations.
You can also take workers out for capacity building initiatives and make sure nobody works under pressure. Dissipate creative and DEI conflicts by including the best ideas and diverse perspectives in the final project.
References
- How Leaders can Address Emerging Trends in Workplace Conflicts.
- Types of Workplace Conflicts.