Workplace Mediation for Conflict Resolution

ONLINE AND TELEPHONE SERVICES AVAILABLE FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE
Payment can be made by etransfer, Visa or Mastercard

Workplace Mediation

Our Workplace Mediation services provide a prompt, discreet and cost effective remedy to workplace conflicts, disputes and disagreements.  It involves neutral facilitation of issues the parties raise where resolution or an agreement on a plan is needed.

Cost of Conflict: Why Silence Is Killing Your Bottom Line
  • employees waste an average of $1,500 and an 8-hour workday for every crucial conversation they avoid according to the study conducted by the authors of the New York Times bestselling book Crucial Conversations, 95 percent of a company’s workforce struggles to speak up to their colleagues about their concerns
  • 8 percent of employees estimate their avoidance costs their organization more than $10,000. an organization’s bottom line and reputation is hit especially hard when there is covert or overt conflict and that includes harrassment and bullying
  • Use our Workplace Mediation services to Resolve Conflict

  • Use our specialized Workplace Training to Reduce Avoidance and Increase Productive Conversations

  • Use our Facilitation Services to have difficult or sensitive conversations

Workplace Mediation Can Be Used to Resolve Conflicts:

  • Between Staff
  • Between Managers
  • Between Managers and their Staff
  • Within or between teams of any size
  • With your customers, clients, suppliers, purchasers, funders
  • Family Business Issues
  • Sports Team Issues
  • Sports Management
  • Community Relations
  • Financial Issues
  • Environmental Issues
  • Succession Planning
  • Employment Issues
  • Other issues where agreement is required

Workplace Mediation is Suitable for:

  • Conflicts or disagreements about working styles, roles or responsibilities
  • Personality differences
  • Allegations of racism, bullying and/or abuses of power or authority
  • Allegations of discrimination and harassment in all forms
  • Conflicts arising from the allocation or distribution of resources, rewards, bonuses, salaries, etc
  • Conflicts arising from the management of change, merges, acquisitions, growth or downsizing, termination
  • Cultural conflicts arising from the culture of the firm or wider cultural differences between the parties

Workplace Mediation Tends to be Unsuitable when:

  • The parties refuse to engage in mediation
  • There is a substantial power imbalance between the parties that cannot be balanced via mediation
  • The parties will be unable to implement any final agreements
  • One party is controling, threatening, intimidating, and/or violent towards the other
  • One party is afraid to openly express needs and opinions in mediation

Advantages of Workplace Mediation over Litigation

1. Control the outcome: You make the decision. The settlement , if any, will be decided by the parties, not imposed by a judge or arbitrator.

2. Control the process: The parties will select the mediator and decide which issues will be addressed, when sessions will be scheduled, and how fees will be apportioned. In short, you design the process and it can be well defined and predictable.

3. Decrease cost of dispute: In mediation, your business lawyer acts in a consultative or coaching role, with you or your executives. The lawyer does not have to participate in the mediation. In contrast, business disputes in court can result in lawyers assuming the important decision-making role on your behalf and the process is more or less out of your control.

4. Timely: Mediation can be scheduled and likely concluded as quickly as the parties need.

5. Confidentiality: Control unwanted publicity. Mediation avoids public exposure of business mistakes, internal problems and trade secrets. This is a significant benefit. A local or national company has an important interest in preserving its reputation and goodwill. Sometimes the negative costs of going public with a dispute can be huge and it gives your competitors the advantage.

6. Preserve relationships: Mediation can allow the relationship between disputing businesses to outlast the dispute. The very process of arriving at a consensus decision can be the foundation for the parties to continue to do business together. Going to court destroys relationships. Many businesses are also realizing the value of using mediation as part of an overall strategy to build and keep good customer relationships and healthy employee relationships.

7. Deal with the underlying issues: Parties can discuss the underlying problems and issues in the dispute including personality clashes rather than argue about legal issues. The result is usually that a more honest solution is reached, which leaves participants feeling better about themselves and more productive.

8. Discuss technical issues or details: Issues which may be too complex or technical for a judge to grasp in the rushed atmosphere of a courtroom can be handled in mediation.

9. Plan for the future: Parties can talk about more than just the dispute, they can devise a plan for a future working relationship.

10. Satisfaction with the process: Mediation has a high settlement rate and participants are generally much more satisfied with the process compared to other forms of dispute resolution.

11. Mediation has significant benefits for the business community. Creative ways of resolving conflict can add to the bottom line of any business whether large or small, and with some creativity, even provide avenues for profit.

The Workplace Mediation Process:

  • Upon your inquiry we contact you to discuss mediation, the issues to be mediated and your expectations.
  • We contract with you to provide mediation services.
  • We ask that a neutral venue consisting of two rooms and a waiting area is made available in readiness for mediation unless you use our premises.
  • We meet all parties individually first.
  • We then arrange for all parties to meet together in a joint meeting with the mediator.
  • Where possible we produce the mediation report before we leave so that the parties can take it away with them. If not, we will send it to you within two weeks of the last session.
  • We offer ongoing support and follow up as contracted.