Friday March 18, 2011 at 6:17am
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&n....
Thursday March 10, 2011 at 10:40pm
Much discussion with the public sector focuses on redundancies or adjusting pay or pensions.
Whilst these issues are important one of the key issues within the public sector is the management of the poor performer.
Why? Because organisations cannot afford redundancy payments. There is pressure to avoid paying these out and a consequence focusing on performance is key to managing staff.
But if you are human resource manager how do you deal with the poor perfomer. What are the key mediatio....
Saturday February 26, 2011 at 10:40pm
From my experience one of the flaws of most conflict resolution and mediation courses is their inability to deal with the one on one confrontations. They do not train the would be mediator to dealing and handling conflicts.
Yes, the model often gets the mediator or manager to identify issues, develop strenths and weaknesses, apply some pressure but what about giving tips on handling one on one conflict.
Let's face it. Most managers dread conflict.
I believe that mediation is....
Friday November 19, 2010 at 12:31pm
It is quite clear that the government would desperately like to cut the court costs with talk of increasing the length of service for employees being entitled to make an unfair dismissal claim, cutting the legal aid costs and increasing use of mediation in civil disputes.
This may help employers but we have been here before with the Gibbons Review which called for greater use of mediation in employment disputes largely being ignored.
An even more ....
Wednesday November 10, 2010 at 8:38am
There was a good article in the Times yesterday by Rachel Sylvester(subscription) showing the tensions between ministers and civil servants.
On the one hand, Downing Street is frustrated by foot dragging by parts of Whitehall.
On the other hand,civil servants feel cut out of decsion making, offended by plain speaking such as from Eric Pickles and are fearful of losing jobs and/or perks.
Frankly these problems are inevitable.
The problem which both parties have is that they do not have a....
Monday November 2, 2009 at 5:33pm
Recently I was doing some mediation and negotiation training for some lawyers and we came to the issue of the opening session of the mediation.
One City lawyer was explaining to me that he had recently done an opening session where he made a significant concession out of the blue. It had not been put in the pre-mediation statement or otherwise before the mediation, but had been made to the other side's face at the opening session.
The concession had been done....
Tuesday October 13, 2009 at 3:26pm
As Local Authority News reports, thirteen districts in Essex have joined the county council to form a new partnership to provide legal services.
The context is that all public services face a major challenge in the years ahead, as resources become scarcer – and local government will feel this as acutely as any. Essex Legal Services Partnership has created a new model for local government services, which enables the teams to improve services to clients and communities. The new way o....
Tuesday September 29, 2009 at 10:54am
According to People Management an in-house mediation service at East Lancashire NHS Teaching Primary Care Trust has reduced formal dispute cases by 60 per cent in its first year, PM has learnt. The trust trained 15 members of staff, including front-line workers, managers and union stewards, as mediators and appointed a dispute resolution lead to work alongside HR to coordinate the service.
I do some mediation training of the same sort . Provided it is managed carefully organisat....
Tuesday August 18, 2009 at 2:35pm
There is an excellent article written by Alex Locke for the ELA Briefing on the issue of employment judicial mediation.
We now learn via Alex the following.
There are very few employment judges trained as mediators. In one of the London regions only two judges have been trained.
There appears to be inadequte facitiies such as more than 1 room available.
There is a lack of guidance given to parties which prohibits the judges from giving a steer to the parties.
Oh dear.
First of all....
Sunday June 7, 2009 at 6:42am
I have recently just finished training 36 people at a leading London Council into becoming mediators.
It is quite satisfying to see a number of people develop the skills which will enable them to become in-house mediators within their organisation.
The goal is simple. By the staff being trained up they will deal with a number of grievances and hopefully lead to a positive resolution and save Employment Tribunal costs.
The course was 2 days and obtains supportive feedb....
Tuesday May 26, 2009 at 11:20am
My firm has just finished conducting some mediation and negotiation training for some staff at a leading London council and looking to develop their negotiation skiils.
Now one of the intriguing themes which we explored was how to break impasse in negotiations. What do you do as mediator when things stall and the mediation looks like hitting the rocks?
Here are some tips:
1 Hold a summit meeting - Get the parties or their representatives together and impress....
Tuesday February 24, 2009 at 11:34am
From my point of view we are now entering a busier time of year as I start to do more mediation seminars.
In particular March will witness my doing mediation training with MBL Seminars and start doing seminars on mediation for Employment lawyers and Commercial lawyers.
I have worked with MBL Seminars for 3 years and they always shown a lot of flair and imagination.
In March we have dates lined up in both London and Leeds and it should be fun.
The specific dates are:
Wednesday 11....