Everyone in the workplace is covered by an employment agreement. You may have to negotiate employment agreements for your job. You may choose to negotiate an individual agreement, or have input into the collective employment agreement.
In large organisations, the task of negotiating employment agreements is often delegated to a particular part of the organisation, such as the Human Resources team. Small businesses do not have so many resources, so managers must be capable of doing a variety of tasks.
Negotiation, in its broadest sense, means the process by which two or more people work through their various needs and wants until they have reached an outcome. If the negotiation has worked well, the outcome will be mutually acceptable. This isn’t always the case.
Negotiations can be tense and stressful. This can be particularly true when employment agreements are being negotiated, because the livelihood and income of the participants is involved. People may become subjective about the issues being discussed, rather than maintaining objectivity. A useful skill is to be able to defuse these feelings of stress and tension so that you and the other parties can work constructively together. This is known as collaborating.
To understand what collaboration is, and how to make it work, it is useful to spend some time thinking about how we each respond to conflict. This helps to see where collaboration fits in.
We all respond differently to conflict, depending on the circumstances in which it arises, what is at stake, and who we are. Generally, our responses will fall into one of five categories:
We practice avoidance when we avoid the conflict by absorbing the way in which it makes us feel without expressing it to the other person. This is the ‘say nothing’ approach.
For example, you are on the bus on the way to work. The person behind you is talking to their friend very loudly, making it difficult for you to read the paper, or think through a problem that has arisen at work. While this sort of behaviour is very annoying, most of us would avoid the conflict by saying nothing. Given the context, that is sensible. You are unlikely to have to encounter that person again, and most of us simply haven’t the energy to challenge someone about something so minor, so early in the day.
When you avoid conflict, nobody has their needs met.
We are accommodating when we become involved in the conflict but resolve it by allowing the other person’s needs to dominate. This is the ‘you get your way’ approach.
For example, you are a parent. You like to watch a particular television programme every Thursday evening. You have two children in their last years of primary school, and you are usually very careful about helping them with their homework. You make a point of making sure they do not have work left for Thursday nights when your favourite television programme is showing. One Thursday, your son comes to you just before the programme is due to start. He has not told you that he has some work due in the morning – he did not tell you because he wanted to go to a friend’s place for the afternoon. You are annoyed with him, and disappointed that you will miss your programme. However, you accommodate his need and assist him with his work, and tape your programme to watch later on.
When you accommodate, you satisfy someone else’s needs, but your own needs have not been met and you’re left feeling unacknowledged. This can have an impact on the way you feel about a person or a problem, and it can interfere with your ability to address either effectively in the future.
We compete when we resolve the conflict by ensuring that our own needs are met at the expense of the needs of the other person. This is the ‘I’ll get my way’ approach.
You have had a bad cold and been quite sick with it. It has stayed on your chest for weeks and you are only just beginning to get better. You are out with your friends in the first evening for ages and you’ve been really enjoying feeling well again. But someone in the group suggests you all sit at some outside tables. You ask them not to. In this situation, you’ve put your needs for good health ahead of the other person’s need to sit outside. They may be annoyed, but it would make you start coughing again. Your decision to put your needs ahead of theirs in this context is reasonable.
When you compete, you satisfy your needs at someone else’s expense. It is likely that they feel exactly the same way about you that you feel about the people you accommodate. Either way, it isn’t helpful.
We compromise when we each give up something important to us in order to satisfy one another. This is the ‘good but not great’ solution.
You’re at home with your flatmate. There’s only one orange left in the fruit bowl, and you both want it. Neither of you can be bothered to go out and buy more oranges, but you both feel strongly enough about it not to just give the whole orange away and get another later. You argue about it for a while, and eventually agree to cut the orange in half. You’ve compromised in order to end the argument, but you’re both a little unsatisfied because you both wanted the whole orange.
When you compromise, you both feel both that you’ve contributed to the solution and that some of your needs have been met. That’s good, but it can be unsatisfying, because those un-met needs may niggle away and resurface later.
We collaborate when we regard the problem as something separate from us both and join forces to tackle it. This generally creates more room for creative thinking, and allows for the classic ‘win-win’ solution.
Think about that orange again. This time, instead of just arguing about why you should each have the whole orange, you tell each other what you actually want it for. It turns out he wants the rind to bake a cake, and you want the juice to have a drink. Problem solved. Your flatmate peels off the rind and makes his cake, and you juice the orange and have your drink. Maybe you even share the cake and the juice! This time you’ve collaborated, and you’re both happy.
When you collaborate, everyone listens, gets heard and contributes to an outcome that they are able to live with reasonably successfully. There’s always some after-effect with all of the responses except collaboration. Each of these responses to conflict can be valid within its context. We may employ them every day.
The most important part of collaboration is being able to separate the problem from the person. When you are in the throes of a tense negotiation involving someone’s salary or holiday entitlements, instead of thinking of them as being unreasonable and responding accordingly, step back and ask these questions:
Can you talk about meeting one another’s needs in broad terms? Be inventive. Extra salary or holidays might not be practical, but what about some form of job-sharing for a period, or dropping to part-time hours, or a performance-related payment that provides incentives to encourage higher productivity at work?
You need to get to the heart of what matters to the other person. Communicating effectively and helping people trust you enough to tell you what really matters to them are critical to negotiation. There are a few simple ground rules:
A poor attitude shows. No matter how you might be feeling, show your commitment to resolution and to the other person.
Remember that collaboration can be reduced to sincerity and respect. It really is that simple. It is remarkable how often sincerity and respect are absent from employment negotiations. How much more effective we would all be, and how much better our agreements would be, if sincerity and respect were always present on both sides.
Your ground rules for engagement will help you give the appearance of being in control. Now you need to think about the things you should be doing to ensure you are in control. In negotiation, there are five golden rules:
Think about this in terms of the issues you will have to deal with. You need to know what you want, how you want to achieve it, and where you are prepared to moderate your wants in order to secure an agreement.
What are the limits of your authority? How far can you commit your organisation without seeking the endorsement of someone with more authority? Do you have the authority to conduct this negotiation and carry it to its conclusion?
Few things are more frustrating or counter-productive than working through a tense and difficult exchange with someone and eventually coming to a resolution that everyone is happy with, only to find that the person you are dealing with does not have the authority to conclude the deal and their manager refuses to agree to it.
You will lose credibility and goodwill if you have to return to a negotiation and say that the agreement you reached cannot stand, because your manager does not agree to it. If someone else expects to have a say, check with them first or invite them to attend. Make sure you do not mislead the other party. And if you are going to need subsequent approval, say so.
A logical structure is essential to any meeting, including a negotiation. Think about how you would like to structure the meeting beforehand. Is there a particular sequence you would like the discussion to follow? Think about the order in which you want to make your key points, and how you will use these to reinforce one another.
Do you think the information you are getting from the other side is telling you the real issues are different from the ones you have written down on your agenda? Ask questions to clarify, and do not be afraid to say things like ‘I’m beginning to wonder if we are talking about something a little different from our agenda. Maybe it would be useful to revisit this?’
Asking questions keeps you in a strong position. It keeps the flow of information going and it helps you get an idea of the value the other side is putting on some of the issues you need to resolve.
A successful negotiation leaves everyone feeling they have gained something. Although you may feel you have achieved little, if you conduct yourself well you will find your confidence increases and you will gain professional respect and credibility. This will help you in future negotiations because trust has been established.