Workplace Mediation is Just Solutions core business, and one that the Partners feel passionate about
All three have been active in the field of organisational development and team building, so they have seen at first hand the havoc that unmanaged (or mismanaged) conflict can wreak amongst the very individuals who form the human capital of a Company. If trouble is brewing amongst front-line staff, clients and customers tend to receive bad service. People become inward-looking and pre-occupied instead of focusing on the needs of the Business or Service and its users. Teams become dysfunctional and cease to work smoothly together. The impact becomes obvious quite quickly.
It is usually only then that someone senior feels the need to get things sorted, or one of the unhappy participants in the conflict draws it to the attention of the HR Department and kick-starts an official process of blame and punishment.
The path taken by Mediation is different, and far more likely to succeed in re-establishing sustainable working relationships. It is informal and confidential, and does not involve Senior Managers, Human Resource Departments or notes on individuals personnel records - but has to be voluntary. Former protagonists may never become close friends, but if they can work maturely and productively together again, the damage done by the dispute is limited
As Mediators, Just Solutions offers a skilled and speedy service designed to get the show back on the road and prevent one or other of the parties having to move jobs to another part of the organisation or leave it altogether.
We work discreetly and professionally and will tailor the timing of the stages of the mediation process to meet the needs of your business.
What we will do is to:-
Meet each party to the dispute separately and listen to their personal version of events; how they feel and what they want.
Weigh up the possibility of finding sufficient common ground between them to enable an agreement to be reached.
Bring them together if so, and manage the joint meeting process in a safe and orderly way to enable them to share their thoughts, feelings, opinions and aspirations with each other in a positive and supportive environment.
Assist them to arrive at an agreement based on changing their behaviours for the future, to allow an acceptable working relationship to be re-established.
Review the agreement with them after a period of time, and help them to refresh or reconstruct it if necessary.
No detailed feedback is given to the organisation by the Mediator as the process has to be confidential. This is essential in order to gain the trust of the participants and their acceptance of the process itself. Only the outcome of the mediation will be relayed to the Commissioner i.e. An agreement has been reached, and will be reviewed in 3 months time. or Unfortunately, the parties were unable to reach any agreement and the Mediation process has broken down.
In the latter case, the dispute remains unresolved and is likely to revert to the established disciplinary/grievance procedure pathways
Obviously when workplace disputes arise, it is best to tackle them quickly before attitudes become entrenched. If this is done it is quite possible for Mediation to achieve mutual apologies and renewed goodwill between the parties
