Negotiating Skills

 Plan

This case involves the manager of Bristol Clothing Company and Frankie, who has just completed his six-month probation period and has shown excellent skills during this period. The Company is doing very well and has been expanding each year and offers the opportunity for Graduates to train. For Frankie, there would be an excellent chance to be permanently employed. About this, Frankie plans to meet with the manager to negotiate his terms of employment to achieve several goals. They include; getting a promotion, attaining benefits that could consist of a significant pay rise, a company car, mobile or laptop, an additional five days’ annual leave, the opportunity of foreign travel, and the ability to regularly work from home when suitable.

He is very ambitious, and he also has excellent skills that include; he is a quick learner, creative thinker, likable team player and eager to take on new tasks, which makes him a valuable employee. However, despite his excellent qualifications and skills, he is regularly late, and this does not work well for the Company. As the manager, there aspects that could be negotiated and others which the company regulations would not allow.  The negotiation skills come in handy to assist arrive at a mutual agreement having both interests of the parties protected, offering the best alternatives to each party.

Academic Summary

There are critical areas in which the manager is very keen on bearing in mind in preparation for the negotiation. The negotiations are not primarily about positions; bargains should not be over positions; it produces unwise decisions (Parker, 2015). The type of consultation to be applied should be cooperative negotiation, to have a ‘win-win’ outcome. Being objective is very important; in the instance that Frankie requests for conditions not prescribed by the Company’s regulations, there will need to remain objective and ensure that the negotiations are based on merits (Mind Tools, 2019).

It should also be principled in the sense that the primary interests are prioritized, and fair standards are upheld to produce a wise agreement. In this case, BATNA is very important in determining the outcome of the negotiation (Eiseverywhere, 2019). BATNA is the Best Alternative to a Negotiation Agreement, and it reveals the minimum acceptable issue that each party is willing to agree with.

In this case, the manager’s BATNA includes an agreement to negotiate on pay, the flexibility of working hours and location of work, and benefits in terms of an annual bonus, training, company car, mobile, and laptop (Leigh Thompson, 2019). However, the ability to negotiate on longer holidays, reduction in monthly hours worked, and a guarantee of any benefits not necessary to the job is not a possible compromise.

While on Frankie, the ability to regularly work from home when suitable, getting a promotion, and getting benefits seems to be his bare minimum acceptable outcome, especially to deal with his getting to work late. Flexible working hours would work well for him. He would ideally be required to be willing to give up the request to get foreign travels. Also, giving up additional leave days and reduction in monthly hours worked, because of being given flexible working hours to assist in making it more convenient.

Bibliography

Eiseverywhere, 2019. Principled Negotiation – The Harvard Approach – Fisher & Ury. [Online]
Available at: https://www.eiseverywhere.com/file_uploads/fd90f7b5575b6d9229dfb17bf132b299_ER2017_CollaboratingwithSchools_SandyMislow_Handout-PrincipledNegotiation.pdf[Accessed 9 December, 2019].

Leigh Thompson, 2019. Negotiating a Job Offer. [Online]
Available at: http://www.leighthompson.com/negotiating-a-job-offer/[Accessed 9 December, 2019].

Mind Tools, 2019. Win-Win Negotiation Finding Solutions That Work for Everyone. [Online]
Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/NegotiationSkills.htm[Accessed 9 December, 2019].

Parker, M., 2015. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. [Online]
Available at: https://github.com/mgp/book-notes/blob/master/getting-to-yes-negotiating-agreement-without-giving-in.markdown[Accessed 9 September, 2019].