Workplace conflicts: don’t accelerate, mediate!

You could be forgiven for wondering if strong inflation and escalating wage demands could take the country’s workplaces back to the bad old industrial days of the late 1980s and early 90s. 

We’re emerging from the covid period, when everybody basically had to be flexible and accommodating. 

Now that wellspring of flexibility might be drying up.

Thirty years ago, inflation was running at today’s level. Similar cost-of-living pressures existed and price hikes were hefty. 

Not surprisingly, perhaps, bitter workplace disputes were the order of the day.  

These disputes can be as expensive as they are ugly, particularly if lawyers are called in.

In the UK, a recently published study found that the overall cost of conflict to organisations there averaged out at £1,000 ($1,980) per employee per year. 

It’s likely to be a very similar picture here.

What’s more, the same British researchers found that more than half of all workers reported suffering stress, anxiety or depression related to workplace conflict – you know, the kind that keeps you awake at night or gives you sweaty palms. 

As many as one in 30 had to take time off work – or simply resigned – because of this.  

Specialist mediators

Workplace disputes don’t come cheap and they’re hugely destructive to both individuals and organisations. But one important thing has changed over the past 30 years. We’ve seen the growth of specialist mediators in and around the workplace who are employed to resolve disputes – often before they even properly start. 

From being something of an outrider in the world of dispute resolution, workplace mediators today play a significant role. 

As a barrister and mediator, I’ve seen a huge increase in employers taking a preventive approach to workplace issues by using mediation and facilitation in the workplace.  

As this style of mediation has become more common, it has also become more nuanced. 

Broadly speaking, mediation in the workplace does what mediation has always done: it allows parties to try to find alternative or creative ways of satisfying interests and needs. 

It also allows space for the parties to be heard, as well as helping them to look afresh at matters or grievances underlying employee wage claims, employer positions and disputes or conflict within the organisation. 

These are things that can be thorny to resolve without having a facilitated conversation.

Develop workable solutions

The value of mediation is allowing space for each "side" to have their say and be heard. 

It gets things into the open, which itself is hugely beneficial, because it’s often not the problem that matters as much as ignoring it does. 

A big part of the process is helping people to understand the other’s view and develop workable solutions. 

These agreements can lead to a resolution that all the parties can live with, even if not everybody is 100% thrilled about it.  

More importantly, there’s a deeper understanding of the issues so that communication can be restored.

Another ingredient is genuine involvement. 

As one practitioner recently put it, “If you aren’t doing empathy or curiosity, you probably aren’t mediating.” 

That is to say, you’re not coming in as The Expert, but simply as somebody with certain skills who is engaging with a shared problem. 

Positive point of difference

Mediation is also significant in terms of what it’s not. 

It’s not like arbitration or a tribunal, where a third party imposes a decision on you. 

Those are settings where the idea is to find out who’s in the wrong. Or who’s at fault. 

Typically, they involve lawyers or advocates, whose job is to allocate blame as they defend or counter-attack, a process that’s designed to lead to somebody getting compensation. 

Some situations may need this kind of resolution approach, but the vast majority usually don’t. 

Mediation is not about looking to the past but looking to the future. 

It may be necessary, of course, to acknowledge if something's gone wrong and to acknowledge if somebody was at fault. But the whole focus is on looking at what could happen from here on in. 

How could this be changed? How could we do it the better way?

Mediation, which is voluntary, is generally a much faster and cheaper process than legal action. It’s also more positive, and the parties in the process have some control. 

So, while other industrial and economic circumstances may or may not be like they were a few decades ago, this is surely one positive point of difference in 2022.