Being a professional mediator requires reflecting on your past conflicts and learning fromthem. Learning how we deal with conflict can make us better mediators and behave in amore ethical and...

CONFLICT RESOLUTION        9
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
INTRODUCTION
Conflict is one of the health check parameter that maintains checks and balances of all relationships as two persons or group of people may not always agree with each other on everything at all times. Conflict usually occurs when people disagree over their values, perceptions, ideas or desire. The issues may look trivial or serious at first and both should be responded with unbiased views and under local laws.
The following thesis is a conflict in change in payroll system where after surviving through pandemic like COVID-19, a company has decided to change its payroll style which was to convert all it’s direct labour into pay per hour model which had immediately disrupted the current in-hand salary of all employees in the company along with change in other benefits like meals, medical, leave encashment and gratuity thus causing the conflict between the line staff and the management. I was given the responsibility of mediation and execution.
IDENTIFICATION AND MANIFESTATION
It was post the rollback of the lockdown after wave 1 of COVID-19 where the management was exploring various ways of cutting bottom line. The prime reason to cut corners was the slowdown that had hit the industry and lack of demand. The company didn’t retrench any staff during lockdown and had even paid everyone in full without a single day at work. This gave them a motivation that converting the full time employees to pay per hour model will reduce their payroll cost by 35% and they will have an emotional leverage over staff as the staff were paid in full during entire lockdown. The management decided to roll this policy at a day’s notice after consulting with their legal department.
On the other hand, staff who were under immense medical spends and rising cost of inflation were consuming their savings along with their salaries to survive. An average cut of 35% on their current take home would raise a doubt over their survival. Thus staff were not willing to even listen to any statement made by management thus marking this as a conflict which needs to be settled in 7 days as payroll was soon approaching and a consent letter in 48 hours. I was given this challenging roll to mediate and execute . This was the identification and manifestation of the conflict.
RESULT OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION THEORIES APPLIED
I had started my mediation on the lines of MORTON DEUTSCH: COOPERATIVE and COMPETITIVE MODEL , in the first round of cooperative model, I tried to bring them with the fact that when 75% of the industry was shut and marred by the lockdown, the company had paid them in full and now when company needs them in its time of sustainability, they should accept the offer as there will be survival in question for many at this cost. Cooperative model had no impact on the staff as the current medical spends and inflation had made a dent on their past saving.
I immediately switched to Competitive model where I had informed them about competitive peers still at closure of business and their employees are not even paid for whereas we are keeping you employed with a partial cut in salary thereby making you more comfortable to deal with pandemic. The staff though couldn’t argue but were not in agreement.
Post understanding the employee’s side of...