Conflicts are a regular part of our life. They happen not only in personal life, but rather everywhere, including workplaces. Let’s face it; not everyone will agree automatically on everything they’re working on, especially when working together as a team. For employers and project managers, addressing conflict situations is critical to keeping everyone on the same page.
Causes For Conflict
Multiple factors can cause workplace conflict in any teams, but IT teams have their own specifics. The most common causes for these clashes might include:
- Quality of work – In highly technical jobs such as developing code, a single mistake can have a devastating effect on the project. Each line must be perfect for keeping the engine running smoothly. When working in a team environment, there is pressure on all members to work at their highest capabilities without making critical errors. If a team member feels they are getting unfair or rude treatment, this could lead to a conflict.
- Poor Communication Skills – Communication skills are critical for conversing, engaging, and working with others on the Team, especially if part of your team works remotely. Members may need to respond to project communications via email, phone, text, Skype, or using a project management solution at their disposal. These days, people don’t want to wait long to hear back on their inquiries, so slow response times or poor wording could create unnecessary tensions among team members.
- Lack Of Planning – project roadmap, not detailed enough or poorly planned activities for any time period during project lifespan can cause confusion, misunderstandings, and unnecessary troubles. When plotting out or implementing a project roadmap, strict policies should get followed. There should never be a time when team-members get switched from project to project without advance notice. Personnel who suddenly get shifted away from an ongoing project could feel confusion and anger, which is a definite lead to the new conflict.
- Personal Reasons – The more people that are on your team, the more chances there are for conflict. Sometimes people don’t get along, due to personality differences, having different values, or unclear roles, or perceived favoritism.
What Employers Can Do To Resolve Conflict On IT Teams
To efficiently manage workplace conflict, implementing an organizational or company-wide culture is a smart idea. Your culture should deal promptly and fairly with employees when said employees aren’t able to resolve the issues personally.
Ways to make sure that all IT members understand the company culture is by ensuring that all communications and policies are consistent and straightforward to understand. A clear and concise system helps to make decisions more transparent for all parties concerned.
In this policy, it should be clear that every employee is accountable in dealing with conflict, regardless of their position, pay grade, experience, or seniority status.
Conflict in the workplace doesn’t have to be ordinary when you address this authentic concern of employers and employees. The better you keep communications, the more efficiently your team works together.
Need help streamlining your software development project? Contact the experts at Sprinterra today!