Mediation In The Workplace

Mediation At Workplace

Mediation in the workplace. There is an element of intimidation in making a dispute at work formal. A professional relationship in tatters can turn the office into something of a battlefield in short order; one becomes conscious of the formality of procedure, every meeting is fraught with tension and each email is examined with care. Yet it is not necessary to have recourse to stressful tribunals, defensive disciplinary hearings or protracted legal means to put an end to workplace conflict.

A better way is mediation in the workplace. It is a voluntary, confidential affair where a neutral third party puts conflicting colleagues on the same page. One should not think of it as a trial: the mediator is no judge, there are no winners or losers and he or she will not be apportioning blame. What you have is a facilitated, structured conversation for the express purpose of charting a practical course ahead.

Mediation In The Workplace V’s The Formal Grievance

Any organisation worth its salt has a formal grievance process, and where discrimination or misconduct is concerned, that is as it should be. But for the everyday friction and clashing of styles that are more prevalent, such procedures can be counterproductive. A grievance is adversarial; it compels the parties to put up a defence, to collect evidence and make a case of it, all of which serves to entrench the divisions that mediation in the workplace would otherwise see to.

Mediation In The Workplace Statistics & Cost

Then there is the cost of allowing a conflict to run its course, and it has been put in numbers. ACAS research has it that UK employers are out of pocket by some £28.5 billion a year on account of workplace conflict, or about £1,000 per head of staff. The bulk of that is not in legal fees but in the loss of people; conflict induced resignations alone run to £11.9 billion annually as employment relationships fall apart.

It is a common problem too. According to the CIPD Good Work Index, some eight million employees in the UK have had their share of workplace conflict in the last 12 months, and only a third of them would say it was properly put to rest. Add to that the 2.8 hours the average employee diverts from productive work to deal with disputes, as international studies show, and a mediated conversation is hard to beat for speed and economy.

Consequently, modern organisations are of a mind to eschew a culture of grievances in favour of early resolution. They reserve the paperwork for when dialogue is exhausted.

Need A Workplace Mediator?

Teams will have their differences over ideas and priorities and that is fine. But when the conflict ceases to be about the work and becomes personal, mediation in the workplace is called for. You will know it is time from certain indicators:

• Colleagues will shun one another or communicate by email with a manager cc’d in.
• An argument is rehashed time and again under a different guise while the tension remains.
• There is an atmosphere in which others are made to feel they must pick a side.
• Missed deadlines, a lack of collaboration or unexplained sick leave point to a drop in performance.

The onus is on HR and managers to intervene before small matters become old feuds. Allowing friction to go unaddressed for months until it is open hostility is a failure of conflict management. Should the need arise after such a delay, mediation in the workplace is still of value, though leaders would do well to be upfront that trust will take some rebuilding and to prepare the team accordingly, making plain that the process is without blame and entirely optional.

Mediation In The Workplace Preparation

Before coming to mediate your case, the person assigned to do so, your workplace mediator will want to speak with you. Expect a 15 to 30 minutes on the phone or a zoom call to be introduced. They will set out what a position statement and an agreement to mediate are, put any questions you have to rest and ensure your expectations are in order. The position statement is where you will set out in detail the nature of the problem, how and why it has come to pass and at what time. It should also cover the steps needed to put things right; both are a prerequisite for your mediation in the workplace to go ahead.

After that there will be a short request for you to put into words the principal issues with the other employee and touch on any incidents of note that have been the spark or fuel for the dispute.

The Four Key Steps of the Mediation Process

For one about to undergo mediation in the workplace an understanding of what lies ahead goes a long way to allay anxiety. In general the process is broken down into four:

1. Initial Separate Meetings. The mediator will have a word with each person apart before the group comes together. You can use this private setting to make your case and voice any frustrations and say what you want to get out of the session without the other party present or any thought of reprisal. Some find a measure of comfort in being heard for once without interruption or censure.
2. Ground Rules. Once the parties are prepared to be in the same room the mediator will put some boundaries in place. Active listening, taking turns to speak, confidentiality and respectful language are among them. Such rules are not mere formality but provide the psychological safety for an open exchange. Without which mediation at work would not be effective. 
3. Getting to the Real Issues. The joint discussion gets under way and the mediator will see to it that both sides put aside the more defensive posturing and surface anger to address what is really causing the friction, be it a trust issue, a failure to be recognised or a misunderstanding that has run away with itself. Frequently the argument is not what it seems.
4. An Agreement for the Future. When the subtext has been aired, attention is given to the road ahead. A workable plan is put together by both as to how they will operate and talk from here on in. It is not something imposed upon them but of their own making and for that reason it endures.

Common Mediation Mistakes

A good mediator cannot prevent participants from sabotaging the result. Some of the more usual errors are:

• Relitigating the past. There is no point in re-arguing old matters to prove who was in the right half a year ago, that will only put a stop to progress. One may need to look back to clear the air, but the object is to determine how to co-exist next week.
• Making it personal. To say “you are impossible” is to invite a defensive reaction whereas “the handover process is at fault” opens the door to a solution.
• Being inflexible. If one is not prepared to give ground then it is negotiation, not mediation.
• Confusing malice with style. What is often at play are personality types, a blunt speaker and a diplomat, an improviser and a planner. To see a colleague’s methods as different and not an obstruction is to alter the whole tenor of the discussion.

Those are principles of communication that hold true well after the mediation is over. Small habits such as giving a sensitive matter the courtesy of a conversation rather than an email, or putting down confusion before bad intent, will mend most of the day to day rifts.

From Conversation To A Durable Agreement

There is not much value in a handshake if within two weeks everyone is falling back into their ways. The best results are enshrined in a SMART agreement: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Rather than some vague promise to do better at communicating, a SMART agreement would be along the lines of: “Monday mornings we will have a fifteen-minute catch-up to set our priorities for the week, and we will take up any concerns with one another in 48 hours and not with the manager. We will see how it is going in a month.” That is how you make goodwill into action and have an objective means of measuring it.

Preparing for Your First Session

Without some forethought, a mediation room can be an intimidating place. The following checklist is there to put your mind at ease and put order to your thoughts ahead of the individual and joint sessions.

1. Know what you want. Put pen to paper and define the outcome you would like to see in the future; make it practical and do not get sidetracked by re-litigating old history.
2. Be factual about the core incidents. For the purposes of discussion, record two or three instances of the conflict on their objective merits, not on any emotional supposition.
3. Make note of your triggers. If you are aware of the particular words or behaviour that ruffle you, you will be better able to keep your reactions in check when we meet.
4. Put the problem apart from the person. In your own mind, turn “my colleague is terrible” into “the way we communicate on a day to day basis has broken down.”
5. Have a compromise in mind. To arrive at a workable agreement, jot down a couple of small matters you can be flexible on.

The Path Forward

What makes mediation effective is that it puts the power where it belongs with those involved. There is complete control over the result as it is you and your colleague who decide, not a judge or a panel. And there is absolute confidentiality: nothing from the room will find its way to HR. All the adversarial nature and cost of a formal grievance are left behind in favour of a more human approach, a plan and a conversation with some structure to it.

For an ongoing clash at the office, mediation in the workplace is a dignified way out of the cycle of conflict. Contact Effective Dispute Solutions today for your free consult. So that you can be calm and in command when you come in for your mediation in the workplace.