Some of the work which my firm has done is to help develop internal mediators within an organisation.
Essentially an organisation which has a number of employment disputes recruit a firm like mine and we train a number of people to become internal mediators. They deal with the internal disputes.
One of the questions is do internal mediators work? is the training of internal mediators worth the investment?
The simple answer is that they can be, but it does require a high commitment from the management, the human resource team and the would be mediators.
The key to success is identifying the expectations of the parties and being realistic about them.
What are exactly trying to do by training a set of internal mediators? Are you trying to reduce disputes? Are you trying to cut out grievances? Are you trying to obtain some valuable feedback about how the organisation can be run better?
Once you have obtained your goals then you must focus on obtaining them.
Do you have the right structure for having internal mediators? At what point will mediation apply? Will you prevent mediation applying if serious allegations are made?
Then you have to start thinking about the individuals. Who can be on the pool of mediators? What characterisics do they have? Are you going to support them with ongoing training?
When you have the mediation, how much confidentialiity will be retained? What about management will they respect the mediator enough? If not, how can you address this.
All these are just some of the dynamics which can influence if an internal mediation is success or not.
Justin Patten, Employment Mediator