Scenario

David is the owner of a sports shop located in Sydney mainly selling soccer sports goods. David was a professional soccer player some years ago until he injured his ankle in a match. David has employed 2 managers, and about 10 staff. 5 of the staff are relatively new and employed as part-time casuals. The other 5 including the 2 managers are employed full-time.

The sports store was shut for 9 months during the Covid19 pandemic and only recently re-opened. The full-time staff were working for David prior to the shutdown and the casual staff were all newly hired.

Most of the customers and their children are local residents who play soccer during the weekends and local soccer clubs which buy their soccer equipment from David such as soccer balls, sports shoes, jerseys, boots, socks and training equipment, etc.

David came back one afternoon to see his staff yelling at each other. The casual staff did not get on with the full-time staff and there was a very heated argument. One of the managers sided mainly with the casual staff, and the other with the full-time staff. Further information provided included the resentment that the casual staff have of the full-time staff, whom they believed were lazy and overpaid. It is evident that the full-time staff and the casuals have a high level of rapport amongst themselves.

David has hired you, as a consultant to resolve the conflict and to present him with some team building and other strategies to resolve the conflict. Note that all staff are connected with most of the sporting clubs and regulators in the area. As such, David did not want his business to suffer if this conflict is not resolved quickly and amicably.

Within the context of Business Relationship Management, you, being the consultant are required to come up with a plan to ensure that David's sports business continues to perform well.

Questions:

1. Discussion of all principles of supportive communication linked to theory and justified with specific examples, such as giving feedback to some unhappy staff members.

2. Evidence of conflict handling styles which will assist David in solving the team conflict.

3. Inform David how you can motivate his staff, including the two managers. Provide relevant motivation theories and how they may be utilized in this case study to assist you in making the report to David.

Please use in-text references to answer these questions.