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Use mediation skills as a preventative
tool
If your organisation has a general tendency for
managers to escalate conflict situations up to senior
officers, then invest in dispute resolution skills training
for managers all levels. Hampshire Fire and Resuce
made a short course part of their core leadership
training, and it has played a real part in managing the
behavioural risk from conflict. Fewer disputes escalate,
managers feel more confident generally about
managing awkward situations and team strife, and
staff feel more listened to and valued.
Manage your formal processes well
Organisations are often aware that it takes
too long to manage grievances, complaints and
disputes, and that many situations escalate quickly
and unnecessarily into the grievance procedure. There
is all too often inconsistency in how investigations
are undertaken and what kind of determination is
reached by Deciding Officers. Train managers to
investigate professionally and give them the support
of empowered HR Advisors with strong persuasion
and influence skills. Outsource your grievances and
disciplinaries via a call-off contract and save time
and money. London Underground saved more than
£3 million over 6 years outsourcing their bullying
and harassment complaints to CMP, and improved
the effectiveness of their decision making officers
by giving them training to understand bullying and
harassment legislation and in making fair judgements.
Manage on-going risk
No matter how proactive you are in using
mediation, you still need a dispute resolution
strategy for handling conflicts which need external
intervention, either because they have become too
polarised and difficult to resolve locally, or are too
serious or sensitive.
A dispute resolution strategy should:
• outline a range of dispute resolution processes
including negotiation, mediation, arbitration and
adjudication
• give guidance on how and when to use each
• indicate skill and process shortages and how to
build them
• give guidance on when to use external or
internal practitioners
• include an evaluation process and audit trail
for how the organisation is going to learn from
disputes.
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