Group Conflict

Disclaimer: I will use initials of any people described in this post.

Within the workplace, I can see conflict arise due to various reasons.  Many of the greatest highs and lows stem from our relationships with others.  Interpersonal strife can block progress and waste time.

In a previous blog post about team success, I mentioned how there is a supervisor named G at the campus hotel I work at who is notorious for not doing his job correctly or at all: counting the cash register, checking the registration cards, balancing the sales, etc.  Recently there was a case of a missing gift basket for a guest who never checked in and none of the employees would own up to it, when clearly someone from the hotel had taken it.  Eventually, it was discovered that one of my supervisors, L, had actually taken it home.  After deliberating, the manager decided not to fire him despite the drama he caused because he was indeed a good worker.  

This in turn led to other supervisors to naturally not like G and even L, who they actually liked before.  Others tend to simply not talk to them whatsoever. And so the group dynamic was quite unpleasant because of this incident also.  Therefore, there was much lack of communication from shift to shift, causing important information concerning lost items in the rooms, laundry needing to be sent out, or late check-outs, to become lost on the way.  This reminds me of the popular game of "Telephone" if you are familiar with it.  Anyways, you would think that these supervisors, who are all much above 40 years of age, would not be this immature about the situation.

After recognizing the cause of such problems, a month ago, the manager, W, decided to have a meeting with the supervisors.  From word of mouth, I heard that W basically told them they needed to not have such conflicts hinder the hotel's management.

Of course, it's not just the supervisors who make mistakes.  So do the students--myself of course included.  This is when the problem concerning mixed personalities. A, who is a fellow student co-worker, is very introverted.  When a problem arises, she tend to cover it up and relied on the supervisors to eventually find it and fix it.

At check-in, when students ask the guests for a credit card to authorize, they are supposed to swipe that card in the computer system in addition to the authorization.  This is done so that when guests check out without returning to the front desk, we have that card on file to charge.  Students forget sometimes, which is fine, but then they need to ask the guests to come back to the front desk to swipe it.  I believe A felt uncomfortable with that fact so she never did so.  At the time, we were not exactly sure who was creating the problem but a couple others and I witnessed it to be her.  This was probably the reason why the manager enforced the rule for employees to initial the registration cards whenever they checked anyone in.  While there is nothing wrong with being an introvert, it is quite hard to communicate to someone without talking to them.  Thus the extroverts of our group had to somehow deal with her and vice versa.

In contrast, there is one supervisor, who thinks she is the boss and just yells at workers like A.  She hardly lets students check guests in even when it would be more successful if she let them.  If a person lets their ego dominate, then the group can suffer.  I honestly do not think she has made improvements with this, and I am also not sure if the manager is aware of it, but the rest of the students are much well aware.

Overall, I feel that because of conflicting personalities, group conflicts can arise.  Like I said in the post mentioned above that I wrote a month ago, team members must agree on who will do particular jobs, how schedules will be set and adhered to, and what skilled need to be developed.  However, conflicts like these can ultimately be beneficial too because when a team encounters collisions, they have to go through the process of learning and acquiring the skills to help them overcome that problem if it arises again.  It requires leadership to stay focused on the goal which everyone is working towards.