Building a Collaborative Workplace Culture: A South African Perspective

Abstract

Developing a workplace culture that can benefit from conflict in a sustainable manner requires a new set of assumptions about the problem, people and process dimensions of workplace conflict. Re-defining the objectives of the employment relationship in terms of voice, efficiency and equity provides a basis for this. A new frame needs to be supported by a decision-making strategy that focuses on joint problem-solving or collaboration, rather than a bi-polar competitive approach to promote both efficiency and employee perceptions of equity. However, collaboration requires trust. Yet trust is not something that simply happens—it is developed over time but can easily be lost. As the old saying goes: 'trust arrives on foot, but leaves on horseback'. Giving employees an effective voice is key to developing trust. Doing so requires an alignment of HRM and ER strategies to build conflict "wise" organizations through the development of appropriate and supporting formalized structures, policies and procedures, supported by training and other interventions to build conflict competence and positive conflict behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)