Ann Marie Puig discusses how to resolve workplace conflicts efficiently

Ann Marie Puig, an expert business consultant, provides strategies and insight into resolving workplace conflicts in order to create more success for the company.

San José, Costa Rica – WEBWIRE

To find those agreements, as a leader you can share previous examples and explain your views so that those involved can broaden your picture. For example, if you disagree with the new sales strategy, they can share what they liked about the other person’s idea or generate motivation to work better as a team.



When building a work team, it is inevitable that the daily coexistence between the different personalities that make it up at some point can lead to the appearance of labor conflicts. Learning how to properly deal with these situations is key to the success of the business. Ann Marie Puig, a global business consultant, understands what it takes and offers insight into how to efficiently resolve issues in the workplace.


Differences in the workplace are normal. In fact, it is healthy for them to happen as long as these types of situations are handled correctly. They should become opportunities for improvement, without neglecting the emotional aspects of those involved.


Labor conflicts can occur in several ways: between two employees, between work teams, or between leaders and the team members they manage. “No matter how difficult the situation becomes, it is always possible to solve it and take advantage of it to learn from it and turn it into an opportunity for improvement,” asserts Puig.


When labor disputes arise, they should not be avoided or pretended that nothing has happened. As time goes on, the tension will increase and the problem will only get worse. It is advisable to assume the problem immediately, before it escalates and the bad feelings it causes are integrated into the daily work of those involved.


If you find that there is a conflict between collaborators, encourage them to find a way to resolve it. If a conflict develops between teams, it is a good time to improve communication between departments. If, as a leader, you have a difference with one of your collaborators, solve it personally and privately.


After the problem is identified, a suitable time and place should be established to talk for as long as necessary until the solution is found without external interruptions. Remember, that’s not the time to allow attacks or find culprits. Those involved should focus on the problem, not their opinions about other people.


When they meet, each person should have adequate time to say what they think the other party needs to hear. As a leader, you should not allow anyone to monopolize the conversation or control the topic. Everyone involved should talk about disagreements and how they feel about the situation.


It is essential to give your full attention to the person who is speaking and not interrupt them or allow the others involved to do so. As a leader, you must make sure you receive the messages that your collaborators want to send, so it is advisable to repeat and reformulate, if necessary, what has been heard to better understand the arguments.


Clarifying questions should be asked, if necessary, and the central ideas should be reviewed to understand the frustrations of each collaborator. Knowing how to listen is a vital practice for the success of any labor dispute resolution process, so you must pay attention, encourage respect in the conversation and weigh the arguments to make the best decision.


The conversation will always focus primarily on disagreements, but the solution is only possible when existing points of agreement are found. This is achieved by also taking into account the positive aspects rather than just the negative ones. Seeking agreement demonstrates a willingness to find common ground and build a relationship around that trust generated.


Adds Puig, “To find those agreements, as a leader you can share previous examples and explain your views so that those involved can broaden your picture. For example, if you disagree with the new sales strategy, they can share what they liked about the other person’s idea or generate motivation to work better as a team.”


The leader of those involved should always mediate labor disputes to provide guidance and find a faster and more thoughtful solution. You should never take sides with any of your collaborators and you should understand that you are involved in the situation just to help them solve the problem.


The leader will likely need to guide the conversation, and if tempers flare, they should redirect the topic so that their collaborators refocus on the real difference. When finding the solution that benefits all parties, you should highlight the positive aspects of the process and suggest recommended actions to take action after the meeting.


Every conflict needs a clear and precise solution that takes into account the views and hurt feelings of each of those involved. Therefore, at the end of the meeting, you should always apologize and commit to overcome the situation, learn from it and promote the conditions so that it will not be repeated.


About Ann Marie Puig


Ann Marie Puig is a business consultancy expert. She is bilingual in Spanish and English, and provides reliable and expert business consultancy services based upon years of experience. She is extremely knowledgeable in current technology, eCommerce and a variety of industries. As a result, her clients are able to trust her to offer a more personal service. When she’s not active consulting for a business, she dedicates her time to her family and her community.

Ann Marie Puig discusses how to keep employees motivated during the holiday period

If you already have an employee of the month program, you can extend it during the holidays and recognize the work of a different person each day, give out small prizes, gifts, bonuses, free afternoons and applaud the effort of all your collaborators.

That time of year is approaching where music, lights and Christmas decorations take over the streets, shops and houses. The Christmas spirit is felt in the air. Employers cannot be oblivious to the joy of the time and can take advantage to motivate the employees of their company. Ann Marie Puig, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist from Costa Rica, provides advice for keeping employees motivated during the holiday season.

Ideally, everyone should all have holidays at Christmas time, but the holidays bring with them the increase in sales and customers, and that does not allow everyone to enjoy a break as they would like. For this reason, business owners and operators should try to maintain a high motivation in their teams, and there are several ways to achieve this. Says Puig, “If you already have an employee of the month program, you can extend it during the holidays and recognize the work of a different person each day, give out small prizes, gifts, bonuses, free afternoons and applaud the effort of all your collaborators.”

Christmas holidays and traditions revolve around food. To make employees feel at home, the company can offer special lunches or dinners for the team and have desserts and sweets in the company’s dining room or lounge. Another way to motivate your employees during the festivities is by participating in collective donations. Despite being the busiest time of the year, for employees, it is very rewarding to provoke a smile and brighten the lives of others. Take a moment to organize donations and deliver them together with your collaborators in schools or hospitals. This will spread the festive spirit of the whole team.

During December, which is approaching quickly, many organizations usually celebrate Christmas. However, some employees may become offended or discriminated against because they have to participate in a celebration that is not aligned with their beliefs. For this reason, business owners and operators must value cultural diversity and be respectful of the celebrations of various ethnic and religious groups. The ideal is to create an inclusive work environment for the entire work team.

This can be accomplished by learning about other cultures. Each culture has its special dates. Talk to your collaborators about the celebrations they practice to learn from each of them and take them into account. In addition, businesses can define a multicultural calendar. Mark on a calendar other celebrations such as Hanukkah or Ramadan. Find their dates and record them so that they can be consulted by all collaborators. Ideally, each holiday should be commemorated in a respectful manner by the entire team.

Be respectful of differences and allow employees to opt-out of the events the organization has in store without any sanction or retaliation. No one can feel compelled to participate in a celebration they don’t believe in. Maintaining a non-specific decoration can also help. Instead of assembling the Christmas tree and filling the office with dolls alluding to Santa Claus, you can decorate with generic ornaments such as flowers, wreaths or candles. Don’t throw a party around a particular celebration. Instead, host a meeting to celebrate the achievements made throughout the year by all employees.

For some, December is the happiest time of the year. For others, it’s the most stressful. Therefore, the organization must maintain a warm, fun and focused work atmosphere in recognizing the excellent work that the team is doing. This way, you will be able to motivate employees to feel happy and satisfied.

About Ann Marie Puig

Ann Marie Puig has been a distinguished Consultant, Assistant Controller, Accounting Manager, Director of Accounting and Finance and Chief Financial Officer for almost 20 years.  She is bilingual in Spanish and English and has a reputation for accurate, clear and concise record management in month-end closings, accruals, reconciliations, AP, AR and JE, as well as superior human resource skills.   She is extremely knowledgeable in current technology, eCommerce and a variety of Industries.

Ann Marie Puig explains how to lead the shift to diversity in the workplace

Incorporating a woman or a person of a different ethnicity into the senior management team is not enough to ensure that a wide range of opinions is heard, and that the organization takes advantage of diversity.

It has been proven that cultural diversity and inclusion must be incorporated effectively for businesses to operate successfully. However, it is common that the correct policies are not implemented or the initiative is not articulated in an adequate way. Ann Marie Puig, an entrepreneur and philanthropist from Costa Rica, discusses how business owners and leaders can, and should, be more proactive in creating a more diverse workplace.

Leaders have the responsibility to understand the DNA of the workplace and drive diversity policies that will result in an inclusive and responsive workforce. This will help employees truly embrace the diversity gene. The most obvious way to do this is to lead the cause. “To bring about change, leadership needs to take the issue of diversity seriously and lead by example. So, the first step is to demonstrate your commitment to the cause,” asserts Puig.

One of the first steps is to research the benefits. There is a lot of evidence about the business advantages that diversity brings to business. This will help convince the most skeptical about the need to change, and will provide a justification for investing in new initiatives.

Make diversity and inclusion a core value will also be beneficial, as well as practical. The values of a company motivate behaviors. So, to put good intentions into practice, it is necessary to have a common set of values and behaviors associated with the basis of a company’s culture. This can eliminate some of the noise and allow faster progress.

Setting goals in the company will help ensure its diversity initiatives are understood. Making diversity a core value may not be enough on its own. Leaders should set clear goals on which they will measure progress.

It’s also possible to link progress to salary. It is said that “only what is measured is managed.” Therefore, leaders should include diversity and inclusion objectives in the management team’s compensation model to motivate change.

Purely symbolic measures should be avoided at all times. States Puig, “Incorporating a woman or a person of a different ethnicity into the senior management team is not enough to ensure that a wide range of opinions is heard, and that the organization takes advantage of diversity.”

To offer a more diverse workplace, leaders need to reduce the hiring and promotion of similar profiles. It takes leaders to have courage and choose diversity. Training on “unconscious bias” can help professionals at all levels of the organization avoid the temptation to hire and promote professionals who have the same style, and speak and think the same way.

Introducing sponsors can go a long way. Support programs can have a more significant impact on diversity than simple mentoring schemes. Companies need to have a mindset that wants to recruit or identify, nurture and train talent that is most likely already within their organizations.

Feeling comfortable with discomfort is not a bad thing. The first step toward change must be a willingness to talk about diversity. This can be uncomfortable because we don’t necessarily know the right language to have these kinds of conversations. However, it is necessary to recognize and break down barriers, give way to openness and honesty.

Share stories that inspire. Talking openly about what motivates change in the company can help leaders motivate others and help them overcome the complexity of putting theory into practice.

A team needs to be more diverse to get better results. When a company lays out the framework and shows that it is committed, employees will respond positively, as well. This will lead to a more diverse workplace as a course of standard progression, allowing the business to be more receptive and successful.

About Ann Marie Puig 

Ann Marie Puig has been a distinguished Consultant, Assistant Controller, Accounting Manager, Director of Accounting and Finance and Chief Financial Officer for almost 20 years. She is bilingual in Spanish and English and has a reputation for accurate, clear and concise record management in month-end closings, accruals, reconciliations, AP, AR and JE, as well as superior human resource skills.   She is extremely knowledgeable in current technology, eCommerce and a variety of Industries.

Ann Marie Puig describes the role Scrum plays in improving marketing practices

The highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous deliveries of products that meet a need. The requirements are changing, and must be leveraged to offer a competitive advantage to the customer. Frequent deliveries will be made, weekly, since the division of labor allows to execute it in this way.

Certain Agile concepts and ideas have been part of the content marketing conversation for some time now. Scrum is a concept that is often part of these conversations. But combining it with Agile causes all sorts of confusion. Ann Marie Puig, an entrepreneur and Scrum expert from Costa Rica, focuses on how a Scrum-based content marketing approach might work, told through the experience of a hypothetical content marketing team.

Agile is a set of methodologies and processes for project development. It is based on flexibility and speed to adapt to changes and project conditions, using these changes as an advantage. The projects are divided into small phases that have to be finalized and delivered in short periods of time, together with a continuous reevaluation and adaptation of the plans. It emerged as a revolution in the 90s against traditional models of project management. The it sector created this model with the aim of improving software development processes. The good results, since its inception, have made Agile has been adopted by other sectors.

Its name is precisely due to what these revolutionaries were looking for: the maximum agility and efficiency possible in the management paths, which seemed stuck in long processes that did not allow them to advance with a firm step or react to possible changes. The short phases of work are linked to partial deliveries, so the accumulations of work and overtime at the end of the month. They don’t get along with the Agile methodology. This way of working has been adopted by both startups and large companies. As the saying attributed to the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar explains, “Divide et impera,” divide and conquer.

Explains Puig, “The highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous deliveries of products that meet a need. The requirements are changing, and must be leveraged to offer a competitive advantage to the customer. Frequent deliveries will be made, weekly, since the division of labor allows to execute it in this way.”

It is necessary the daily joint work between the client company and the developers, with the aim of measuring progress. Projects are developed around motivated individuals. The methodology is based on multifunctional and self-organized teams, which should allow ending the work of offices, in reference to orders from above without being in direct contact with the project. The most effective communication between team members is face-to-face. Regular meetings with collaborators and clients are very important.

The finished product is the only project that counts. But this does not mean that simple language must be used to inform the client of the evolutions during the process. Agile needs sustainable development. It is not about working, but about reaching the product. It is appropriate to maintain a constant rhythm throughout the processes, rather than working extra hours. Technical excellence and design facilitate agile work. It is important that although we have not decided from the first moment, there is a patent quality in the design.

Simplicity is essential. Sophisticated instruments are not necessary to manage the product. It is better to do it in a simple way, which will also facilitate communication with the client. Self-management is very important. As a general rule, teams work better and more motivated when they feel responsible for their project. Changing circumstances and working at regular intervals allows teams to adapt and reflect on how to be more productive or effective.

The most important Agile methodologies are Scrum, Kanban, Crystal Clear and Extreme Programming, among others. Scrum is probably the one that is having the most success. Why? Because it is the one that best adapts to other sectors other than software development. Scrum is an Agile methodology used to reduce risks in the realization of a project. It is based on the daily monitoring of progress, which allows an improvement in communication in the team and with the client.

The marketing sector has traditionally been considered chaotic, perhaps because the existing methodology is small or why not say it, bad. This has led to delays in deliveries and problems between clients and agencies. To reduce these problems, solutions have been sought, such as the application of the Agile methodology to the world of digital marketing, even if it is something recent.

There are a number of Agile processes that adopted by marketing agencies, increase productivity, as well as the commitment of the professionals involved in the project. The application of this methodology has real advantages in the creation of the annual marketing plan, in the elaboration of a social media plan or in the execution of tasks and projects with marked delivery in time. Why? Because for example, if the client requests some kind of change, the team will be prepared to make it during the march, not on the finished project.

Adds Puig, “Daily, 15-minute meetings help the team synchronize and create a day-to-day plan, assessing progress toward the Sprint goal. If we also do a weekly meeting as a retrospective, it will reduce possible errors in development and make the team work like a perfect gear.” The use of digital applications such as Asana or Trello, for the management of projects and processes is essential for an agile operation of the agency. These applications make it easy for each team member to manage their daily tasks, in turn, within general boards divided by clients or by general projects.

About Ann Marie Puig 

Ann Marie Puig has been a distinguished Consultant, Assistant Controller, Accounting Manager, Director of Accounting and Finance and Chief Financial Officer for almost 20 years. She is bilingual in Spanish and English and has a reputation for accurate, clear and concise record management in month-end closings, accruals, reconciliations, AP, AR and JE, as well as superior human resource skills.   She is extremely knowledgeable in current technology, eCommerce and a variety of Industries.

Dorothy Marie Cockey Honored as a Professional of the Year for 2021 by Strathmore’s Who’s Who Worldwide Publication

 Dorothy Marie Cockey of Monkton, Maryland has been honored as a Professional of the Year for 2021 by Strathmore’s Who’s Who Worldwide for her outstanding contributions and achievements in the fields of education and herbology.

About Dorothy Marie Cockey

Dorothy Marie Cockey was the administrator at Chestnut-Ridge Grace Preschool. In that capacity, she upgraded the curriculum to include Music and Physical Education, and she provided instructional support for her teachers. Ms. Cockey also taught second grade where she developed and implemented a primary science program for at-risk students. Later she was an administrator and focused on grades Pre-K through grade 5. She provided staff development to the teachers to enable them to implement Baltimore County’s outstanding curriculum effectively. Her work also engaged senior citizens to work with individual students on their needs in reading.

After Dorothy retired from the BCPS system, she became involved with herbs. She wrote a book entitled, “Herbs Are Easy” which presents information on growing, harvesting, and using herbs. Finally, Dorothy started an herb club entitled, “Herb People of Baltimore County” on the social network called Nextdoor.com. She now has over 250 members in the club which shares herb information to people in Baltimore County and Harford County in Maryland and members of Facebook. Her work is thorough, creative, and applies new successful ideas. Dorothy focuses on every student and implements strategies that are highly successful and excite and motivate her students. She has lovingly provided education to all age groups throughout her career.

Born August 4, 1945 in Baltimore, Maryland, Dorothy obtained a M.A. in Education from Towson University in 1972. In her retirement, she enjoys writing and gardening.

“Surround yourself with smart people.” – Dorothy Marie Cockey

About Strathmore’s Who’s Who Worldwide

Strathmore’s Who’s Who Worldwide highlights the professional lives of individuals from every significant field or industry including business, medicine, law, education, art, government and entertainment. Strathmore’s Who’s Who Worldwide is both an online and hard cover publication where we provide our members’ current and pertinent business information. It is also a biographical information source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms throughout the world. Our goal is to ensure that our members receive all of the networking, exposure and recognition capabilities to potentially increase their business.

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