SOC201A Mediation and Conflict Management

Cause of conflict

In an organization one of the major issues which is the cause of conflicts is the workplace diversity (Rumana et al.,2017). This is also applicable in other legal forms of agreement other than an organization. It has been found  that there has been a conflict between landlord and tenant. It is quite evident that a landlord will rent his or her property to make business , rather to earn money. In this case, it has been found that the tenant has not paid the rent for few months. This has led to increase in the conflict. The main cause is found to be the tenant as a defaulter.

It is manifested among the tenant and the landlord where the conflicts get increased because of legal terms of relationship between them (Bieretz et al.,2020). It is often manifested by the facts that lead to collision between them. It generates threats, challenges, unfaithfulness, anger , withdrawal, etc. It has been found that the landlord and the tenants have different perspectives to resolve such issues. According to the tenant he does not have job, so he is unable to pay his rents. On the other side, the landlord is also justified to say that she is not running a charity and that it is not her fault that the tenant does not have a job. According to landlord, she is on a venture to provide rent of her place and that she wants the tenant to pay her the monthly rents along with late fees and damage charges which may get the default amount to be double . Here , it is the mediator who will play the role to resolve the issue.

Mediation model and its effectiveness

According to study there are three models which can be effective towards the methods of mediation. However, before discussing on it further, it is also important to enlighten on the below matters-

• Mediation- It is a process which leads to negotiations.  It involves a person who is impartial and who will provide a forum  to engage the clients in communication to promote an agreement with resolution (Olivier, 2018). It is the mediator who uses strength and weakness of the conflict towards resolving it.
• Selection of Mediator-Workplace diversity is one of the major conflicts which need attention and thereby mediation is necessary at the beginning of such issue. This involves to select mediator in the organization which shall focus on-

• To look for a similar work style of the mediator like the organization  it needs to serve.
• Need an impartial mediator in the organization.
• It shall be a professional in nature (Wertsch, 2017).
• Advantages of using mediation- Its effectiveness is better comprehensible by discussing the advantages of mediation in the workplace diversity.
• It is less time consuming. In a court trial , it takes few years to resolve the issues; whereas, mediation involves to resolve the issues within few hours.
• It leads to win win outcome
• Clients can make decision on the basis of the communication
• Cost-effective
• It improves relationship among staff and management, thus ensuring a good workplace environment (Ismail et al.,2019).

Power , Rights and Interests

In reference to the above, in this case these three models will be more effective which includes power, rights and interests.

Resolving through power includes mainly violence. This may also sometime asserts towards physical ability to win a situation. On the other side , resolving through rights includes legal systems where law is the last word and it is to be abided by the clients. However,  resolving through interests is the model where matters can be solved before taking legal assistance. It focuses on the underlying needs of the clients or parties. This enables to come to negotiations along with feelings and esteem of each client (Rubenstein,2018).

Although mediation models are effective towards resolving tenant and landlord issues, however,  it seems that collaborating style is also quite effective. It is the collaborating style which works as a combination between assertive and cooperative. It is the collaboration which attempts to work with others for not only identifying a problem , however, it also involves to look for solution which satisfy the concerns of both the parties. It minimizes a negative feeling among parties (McKibben, 2017).  This style is important and more effective because it takes into account experience as well as interests of both tenant and landlord It leads to an open forum towards enabling the parties to come up with the problems and its recommendations.

• Benefits of Collaborating style
• It minimizes the conflict because of the increasing difference of interests among the tenant and landlord .
• It leads to share ideas among each other (Valaitis et al.,2018).
• It reduces hostility among the parties or clients.
• It creates better and healthy environment.
• It leads to better innovation of thoughts and ideas.

Mediation Models or techniques

To discuss further it is necessary to look for the types of mediation. There are mainly three types of mediation – Facilitative , Evaluative and Transformative.

Facilitative-  Here a mediator structures a process to assist the parties or staff in reaching a mutually agreeable resolution. The facilitative mediator does not make recommendations, rather they are in charge of the process towards resolution and the staff or the clients are in charge of the outcomes. This involves to come for an agreement on the basis of information and understanding.

Evaluative – This is a process which involves judges towards resolution (Salehijam, 2020). It follows to look for the negative aspects of the conflicts which may be the weakness for an organization. It looks for identification of conflicts and make necessary evaluation to make settlement among the clients or parties. It gives formal recommendations to clients and assists to get quite accurate outcome to resolve its conflict.

Transformative-  It is a new concept which is based on the concept of empowerment of each of the  parties. It enables to recognize interests and values of each other parties. It enables the parties to identify their disputes towards getting the resolution by them.

Three other mediation techniques to resolve dispute in the workplace

In spite of the above discussion of mediation techniques, there are three other alternative which are quite effective towards resolving dispute among the clients or parties-

Accommodating- This technique forsakes own needs in exchange over meeting the other’s requirement. It gives importance to others necessity which satisfy the needs of the other party at the cost of own needs.

Compromising- This involves towards resolution which is fair for both parties to settle the disputes. This assists all the parties to feel satisfied and to reach an acceptable resolution (Qandil et al.,2021).

Collaborating- It is a technique which involves to work with other person towards finding a win-win situation which satisfies both the parties. This leads to a mutually beneficial outcome among the clients or parties.

These three alternative techniques will also be effective in resolving tenant and landlord conflict because it includes the capability to listen to each of the parties, thus enabling them to speak out to make better communication among each other. It enables to identify the specific issues leading to disagreements among the parties. It gives scope to view conflicts as opportunity towards betterment. It enables the party to learn on giving importance to other satisfaction too along with meeting own needs. It improves the intensity to negotiate the issues.

It gives a space to come up with the autonomy process where tenant and landlord looks for resolution to their problems.  It assists to reach to an objective from both their perspective to fulfilling the needs of both of the clients or parties. This also leads to the involvement of establishing new ways and to work along with new targets towards achieving to meet the needs of both the clients. It remains professional and unbiased in their interaction. It also ensure towards reaching an activity of integration and understanding.

Assessment

It has enabled to assess the requirements and experiences of both the parties in their hard times. It has been a major issue to avoid the circumstances facing certain issues which is affecting the tenant as well as landlord. Default towards rent payment cam lead to other consequent issues affecting landlord because of which she cannot take it for granted to allow the tenant more time to make the payments. This may also lead towards threatening the property interest.  The conflict may affect the tenant as well as the landlord in their physical and mental stress.

Transformative-  It is a new concept which is based on the concept of empowerment of each of the  parties. It enables to recognize interests and values of each other parties. It enables the parties to identify their disputes towards getting the resolution by them.

As a mediator , it will be better to implement on the transformative mediation technique. This will enable to resolve the conflicts among the tenant and landlord. It includes to give values to each other’s concern. It does not make feel empowerment on one side, rather it focuses towards empowerment on both tenant and landlord. It enables a transparent method of resolution along with better insight into the problems (Väyrynen, 2019). This also assists to create better terms between the tenant and landlord without affecting any of their interest. It also leads to a better ground of understanding between the parties. It will ensure to give necessary time to both the parties towards resolving the issue. It also leads to better communication between them which minimizes grudges between each other (Wilkin,2017). It enables the clients to be focused on the issues and restricts them to deviate from it. It enhances to collect information from all sources to make better judgment in creating successful organization.

This will enable to involve in the following-

• Confrontation- This can be used to make both parties to confront in person which will enable to reduce the grudges at the beginning of the process towards resolution.
• Data collection- It is necessary to collect necessary data from each client or party towards conducting the process of mediation. This will enable to get better insight.
• Feedback- This will involve both tenant and landlord towards giving feedback against each other. This will enable to get an idea of their relationship to measure the strength and weakness.
• Resolution forum- The process enables to create a forum towards enabling the parties to deal with their complaints which shall have provision towards resolution (Blignaut,2018).

Conclusion

In reference to the above discussion, it can be concluded that tenant and landlord seemed to be quite offended with each other and it has created more conflict between them. This conflicts need to be resolved by a mediator to make an effective resolution. This paper has discussed on the cause of conflicts and it has focused on the matter between tenant and landlord in the context of defaulters. The discussion also tells about the advantages of mediation which is quite effective to resolve issues between the parties, here it is tenant and landlord.. It has also discussed on the three mediation techniques which will assist in the resolution. It has enabled to get better understanding by revealing on the three alternatives towards the process of conflict resolution. It is under the assessment section which has enabled to discuss to understand on the  experience as a mediator and to use this knowledge towards incorporating the process of resolution in a better manner.

References

Bieretz, B., Burrowes, K., & Bramhall, E. (2020). Getting Landlords and Tenants to Talk.

Blignaut, C. (2018). Effectiveness of conciliation as an alternative dispute resolution process in unfair dismissal disputes (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria).

Carter, R. T., Lau, M. Y., Johnson, V., & Kirkinis, K. (2017). Racial discrimination and health outcomes among racial/ethnic minorities: A meta‐analytic review. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 45(4), 232-259.

Ismail, H. N., Iqbal, A., & Nasr, L. (2019). Employee engagement and job performance in Lebanon: the mediating role of creativity. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management.

McKibben, L. (2017). Conflict management: importance and implications. British Journal of Nursing, 26(2), 100-103.

Olivier, M. (2018). The role of court-annexed mediation in providing access to justice in the resolution of commercial disputes (Doctoral dissertation, North-West University).

Qandil, A. I., Hamdan, M. K., Alhussaina, A. I., Al Shobaki, M. J., El Talla, S. A., & Abu-Naser, S. S. (2021). The level of Mediation Outcomes of Disputes Resolution in Workplace at UNRWA, Gaza.

Rubenstein, R. E. (2018). Conflict resolution and the structural sources of conflict. In Conflict Resolution: Dynamics, Process and Structure (pp. 173-195). Routledge.

Rumana, A. A., & Mutuku, C. (2017). Effect of Age and Culture Diversity on the Performance of Quality Control Organizations in Nairobi County, Kenya. Journal of Strategic Management, 1(2), 1-13.

Salehijam, M. (2020). Mediation and Commercial Contract Law: Towards a Comprehensive Legal Framework. Routledge.

Valaitis, R. K., O’Mara, L., Wong, S. T., MacDonald, M., Murray, N., Martin-Misener, R., & Meagher-Stewart, D. (2018). Strengthening primary health care through primary care and public health collaboration: the influence of intrapersonal and interpersonal factors. Primary health care research & development, 19(4), 378-391.

Väyrynen, R. (2019). From conflict resolution to conflict transformation: a critical review. The new agenda for peace research, 135-160.

Velten, L., & Lashley, C. (2018). The meaning of cultural diversity among staff as it pertains to employee motivation. Research in Hospitality Management, 7(2), 105-113.\

Wertsch, J. V. (2017). Mediation. In Introduction to Vygotsky (pp. 59-72). Routledge.

Wilkin, L. (2017). Mediation as a tool for resolving workplace conflicts. In The Mediation Handbook (pp. 179-184). Routledge.

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