Analyse both the cause of workplace disputes and the strategies used to resolve them.

Workplace disputes occurs between individuals and or groups within business. Stakeholders in the
business often have conflicting interests. These disputes may be informal, formal, overt or covert
and could potentially put constraint on staff training and damage its reputation. There a a number
of different cases of industrial disputes and these include: disagreements regarding remuneration,
employment condition, job securities, health and safety, managerial policy, union issues and
political protests. Strategies however can be implemented by management to resolve these issues
including negotiation, mediation, grievance procedures, conciliation and arbitration.
Issues that arise from remuneration refers to matters such as wage, allowance, entitlements and
superannuations. This is most likely to occur on employees as they receive wages for their labour.
Employees commonly goes into argument with employer for the demand of a higher wage.
Similarly, another major cause of disputes is employment conditions. Employee nowadays not only
seeks to have monetary benefits in working but also the pleasure of working. Disputes in this area
can be created from working hours, leave, benefits, and other general employment conditions that
are not covered by the AWARD or National Employment Standards. Thirdly, health and safety
poses as a controversial topic in businesses. These matters typically relate to physical working
conditions, including safety matters, and workers compensation provisions, protective clothing and
equipment, uncomfortable working conditions, employee amenities, equipment condition, and
overly strenuous physical tasks. Disputes often arise from this when these conditions are not met
by the employers. Lastly, disagreements are often surfaced from poor managerial policies. These
are policies that involves decisions and policies of line managers, such as disciplinary matters,
suspensions, discrimination, decisions that impact upon work and family issues, production limits
or quotas, principles of promotion, and other work practices. Poor policies in the business could
potentially be in conflict with employees as well as shareholders. As for the employees they would
have to follow extra set of procedures and for shareholders profits may be lost.
Some level of workplace disputes is inevitable. This is why businesses must have clear, consistent,
transparent, and fair strategies to address them to avoid reduced employee morale, industrial
action and breaches of the law. When an disputes develops, there are a number of methods that
can be used to resolve them.
Grievance procedures are formal procedures, generally written into an award or agreement, that
state agreed processes to resolve disputes in the workplace. Grievance procedures are useful in
reducing the risk of an issue rapidly becoming a serious dispute. Most businesses have
established a formal process, now required in modern awards and other agreements, by which
issues can be handled. Often the grievance procedures are initial means of dealing with any
industrial dispute is within the workplace. Grievance procedures are advantages as they are always
formalised and therefore businesses have a step-by-step procedures in dealing with issues,
allowing disputes to be dealt with in a timely manner.
Negotiation is a strategy for workplace dispute resolution that involves the parties to the dispute
directly communicating with each other in an attempt to reach an acceptable outcome. The groups

or individuals involved would look to meet face to face in order to try and come to some
compromise. Employer association and unions may be called on if negotiation becomes complex
and the business may not have skills or ER department to do it themselves. However, they are
often beneficial in the sense that this process can benefit the parties involved by increasing their
knowledge of company policy, businesss objectives.
If negotiations are unsuccessful, mediation is the next step. Grievance procedures are formal
procedures, generally written into an award or agreement, that state agreed processes to resolve
disputes in the workplace.This involves an independent mediator, or third party, assisting with the
negotiations in order to resolve the dispute, the mediator can often from Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission (HREOC) or retired judge or barrister. However, the mediator cannot
impose their decision or judgement as their decision is not binding (the business have to decide
wether to impose it or not). Mediation is useful in the sense that it could potentially stop an dispute
before it furthers.
When a dispute has not been resolved through negotiation or mediation at the workplace, it may be
referred to Fair Work Australia, who will appoint a conciliation member to hear claims from both
parties. Conciliation is a process where a third party is involved in helping two other parties reach
an agreement. The conciliation member calls a conference and attempts to help both sides reach
an agreement, which is beneficial as it helps both side to reach a conclusion. However the process
in which conciliation can occur can take up to one year, this time frame would considered too long
and could cause unproductiveness in the business.
If conciliation fails the matter may be referred to arbitration. Arbitration is a process where a third
party hears both sides of a dispute and makes a legally binding decision to resolve the dispute. In
this situation, a member or a panel of members hears both sides of the dispute in a more formal,
court-like setting. A final judgement for the matter will be handed down based on merits of
evidence given by the conflicting parties and become an order which is legally binding to both
parties. It is often not recommended as orders may end a restrictive work practice or behaviour,
such as a lockout, or require a secret ballot of union members if strike action is proposed. Fair
Work Australia may also order that staff be reinstated or that the parties return to the tribunal at a
later date for further negotiations, which again lengthens the time period in settling disputes.
In conclusion, disputes in workplace are cause by a variety of issues. There are strategies in a
business that are effective in settling minor conflicts such as employment condition and health and
safety. However when dealing with bigger issues such as remuneration and managerial policy, it
may take a long time to be settled.