Mandatory Mediation -Time for a New Approach?
The need for investing in early and informal conflict resolution has never been greater. I have said many times before that employers should adopt a strategic… Read more »
With increasing commercial pressure on all employers and rising levels of conflict at work using effective solutions to disputes has never been more important. The traditional formal or legal processes are costly and damaging to individuals and organisations alike. As a result more and more employers are using workplace mediation as an effective, positive and economical way of enabling people to resolve their own conflicts without recourse to formal, adversarial and expensive procedures.
Why Mediate?
- Do you ever feel that you or your managers spend too much time on disciplinary or grievance processes?
- Do you ever doubt that they will resolve the underlying issues?
- Do you ever feel that you are getting locked into a dispute and that the outcome will satisfy no-one?
- Do you despair at the time that it takes to complete formal processes, particularly when absences have to be managed throughout?
- Do you worry about the impact on individuals health and well-being?
- Have you ever settled disputes rather than tried to resolve them in other ways?
If you have answered yes to any of the above questions then mediation may well be a solution. For further details of what mediation is and the mediation process click here.
The Business Case
Unresolved conflict is a huge cost to businesses. Statistics show that Managers spend 24% of their time dealing with conflict. If this time could be significantly reduced just imagine the consequential saving and increase in productivity that could be achieved.
Unresolved conflict leads to:-
- Employees being less effective at work
- A loss of productivity
- Increased sickness absence levels
- An adverse impact on employee’s health and well being
- A loss of talent and experience
- Additional recruitment and training costs
- Costs of legal claims (management costs and legal costs)
- Stress and anxiety for potential witnesses in legal proceedings
- Reputational damage / adverse publicity
The Benefits of Workplace Mediation
Workplace mediation offers a win-win solution. It works, it’s quick, it’s inexpensive, it empowers people and it maintains relationships. The power of mediation lies in the fact that it is the parties themselves that keep control and they are the ones that arrive at the solution with the mediator guiding and managing the process.
Most mediations can be concluded in one day with a high success rate. Mediation can be used for individual as well as team / group conflicts. In the vast majority of cases some sort of agreement is reached at the end of a mediation session but even when this is not possible, our experience is that the process results in learning for those involved.
All of our independent mediators are highly experienced having conducted workplace mediations in many situations and contexts. We have experience of conducting mediations for individuals as well as groups in both large and small organisations in a variety of different sectors including public, private, third sector and not-for-profit organisations. We have also implemented in-house mediation schemes and we can provide individual mediator and expert support as part of these schemes. Our expert mediators can be found here.
Conflict Coaching
Where it is not possible to obtain the agreement of both parties to mediate, conflict coaching can be an alternative to support either one or both parties. It can also be used as additional support to prepare individuals for mediation or post the mediation to provide on-going support.
Conflict coaching can be used to support individuals in:-
- Improving their knowledge, skills and abilities to more effectively manage interpersonal disputes;
- To develop understanding of how responses to conflict and changes in attitude and behaviour can impact;
- To prevent an unnecessary escalation of a conflict situation;
- To prepare for a challenging conversation or with another person or group;
- To develop stronger conflict management skills, for example in performance management and managing as a leader;
- To prepare for participation in mediation,
- To address matters that may arise post-mediation, such as lack of resilience, ongoing unresolved emotions and issues and/or relationship dynamics and so on;
- To apply the skills learned in conflict management and other related training.
Resources
Fact Sheet – Guide to Conflict Coaching
Supporting Trained Mediators
With our considerable combined experience of working as mediators and conflict coaches we are ideally placed to share our knowledge and experience with others to provide supervision and support in continuous professional development. This can apply equally to experienced mediators who may be working on their own or those who are either newly trained or building up their experience.
Supporting Organisations
We provide support for organisations in a number of ways;-
- Supporting your own in-house schemes by providing supervision, support, master classes for more experienced mediators to ensure continuous professional development.
- Consultancy advice regarding setting up, implementing and managing in-house mediation schemes. This can include strategic advice on how your organisation handles conflict and how to transform to a being a Conflict Positive Organisation.
- Accredited training for those who wish to set up in-house mediation schemes.
What our clients say about us: – testimonials
To appoint one of our independent mediators or to speak to us about developing your own in-house mediation scheme or bespoke in-house conflict resolution skills training please contact us.