Workplace Mediation

Do you have workplace conflict which is proving costly to your organisation – financially and/or in terms of management time?

Is your organisation going through a period of re-structuring or change that some colleagues are finding hard to come to terms with?

Is morale low or do you sense your employees becoming increasingly disengaged?

How do you manage a bullying allegation when you sense it is actually a performance issue?

Have you got one of those cases which has been moved to the ‘too difficult pile’ and you are waiting for an Employment Tribunal claim to land on your desk?

The answer to resolving these sorts of workplace issues can often be workplace mediation, yet it remains an under-used method of dispute resolution despite the enormous cost to UK business (and employees) of workplace conflict.

Menzies Law’s Mediation Service offers a low cost and speedy method of solving workplace issues early – before they escalate into grievances, disciplinaries, performance management or even Employment Tribunal claims.

Workplace mediation has been proved to be successful in over 70% of cases and is well worth serious consideration for what can sometimes seem like intractable workplace conflicts.

Workplace mediation can prove particularly successful in the following sorts of scenarios:

allegations of bullying
issues around behaviour and performance
communication breakdowns
lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities
‘management style’ complaints or moans
resistance to change, particularly for role changes
perceptions of/allegations of harassment or discrimination
personality clashes or family business disagreements

During lockdown, one of our employment lawyers, Anne-Marie Boyle trained as an accredited mediator. Anne-Marie is passionate about how it can transform workplace relationships for the better, often in a very cost-effective way. Having seen so many workplace issues end up in litigation, she is a firm believer that, for some matters, mediation is a truly viable solution to avoid litigation with it’s inherent cost and emotional toll.

So, how does workplace mediation work? To provide potential clients with further information, Anne-Marie has written a series of blogs on the role of mediation for resolving workplace conflicts, its effectiveness and on what issues it can best be deployed. Read them: here

If you’d like to discuss a workplace conflict in your business to find out if it would be suitable for a mediated approach, please speak to us.