Learning Conflict Management at Workplace with a HR specialist

Managing conflicts at workplace is a skill every student should acquire before joining professional world. It is important because “everyone has different personalities and way of working,” said Ms. Sherly Lugito, the Head of Human Resources at PT. Bali Turtle Island Development when delivering a guest lecture in Communications program at Binus University International.

“When we enter a new environment, there must be conflict and conflicts should not be avoided,” Ms. Sherly told the batch 2023 of Communications students in one of classes for Organizational Communication course on 25 May 2021.

Conflicts at workplace can occur due to differences of cultural and family backgrounds. Ms. Sherly pointed out that “(our) family get used to our daily behaviors but not work colleagues. And that is why conflict is inevitable.”

Cultural differences give a big impact on why conflicts at workplace can easily occurs. Different cultures influence how people communicate and interact with others. Therefore, conflict communication is important to bring people who are conflicting to arrive at finding solution to their conflicts.

“Our culture trains us to be assertive. People sometimes do not mean what they say. And it can create misunderstanding which can lead to conflicts,” said Ms. Sherly.

Communicating conflicts can helps people to find the solution to the conflict because “communication helps to clear things between people who are in conflict. Knowing that you are having a conflict and expressing the why behind the what is important,” Ms. Sherly added.

Another important point to note in conflict management is the ability to draw a clear line between personal and professional matter. Building a personal relationship such as friendship at workplace is a good thing, but people should not use it to compromise with conflicts.

“When we are at work, we come with different sets of behaviors compared to when we are chilling with friends. So, we should not use friendship as an excuse to pass our job to others or to do other people’s job because it can lead to conflicts,” Ms. Sherly concludes her lecture.

Ms. Sherly has experienced for years in Human Resources field especially in recruitment aspects. She graduated with Bachelor of Psychology from Atmajaya University and Magister of Psychology (Clinical Psichology) from Universitas Indonesia. Previously she worked for reputable companies such as United Nations Development Programme (UNDP Indonesia) and PT. Kalbe Farma.

Contributor: Lily El Ferawati, PhD.

Editor: Lily El Ferawati, PhD.