In-house Mediation Programs: Save Money and Stay Out of Court
Submitted by: William H. Donahue, Jr., Esq., APM, Transitions Mediation Center
Conflict at work can cause good employees to quit, drain away morale, and sap productivity. Sometimes conflict can also lead to expensive, very public lawsuits. But a growing number of companies are using in-house mediation programs to give their employees an effective, private and cost efficient way to resolve almost any workplace problem.
Mediation offers people a way to resolve a complaint or problem quickly, fairly and confidentially. A mediator can guide the parties through a process of non-adversarial negotiation in which everyone involved has a chance to air grievances, listen and be listened to by the other side, identify common and diverse interests, and develop solutions to the problem.
A tremendous benefit to mediation over other forms of dispute resolution is that the parties come up with their own solutions. This is both empowering and satisfying for most people, and helps prevent future disputes in a way that solutions imposed by an arbitrator or judge often do not. The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) estimates that more than 85% of the workplace disputes it mediates are settled. Many of these cases could have been settled in-house without ever involving the EEOC if the companies involved had offered mediation.
Sexual harassment is a common workplace problem that can be resolved through mediation, for example. Consider the worker who really likes her job, and has always liked her boss, but lately feels he has been sexually harassing her. If her company doesn't have a mediation program in place, she has several options. She can complain to someone at the company. That will most likely start an investigation that will result in the company taking action against the boss. If the worker still isn't satisfied, she can file a complaint with the EEOC and eventually even a lawsuit in Federal Court.
But what most people in her situation want is to resolve the problem and go on with their lives and their work. In this case, the worker wants the harassment to stop, and she wants an assurance that she won't be harassed in the future. She also wants an apology. Mediation is the ideal forum for her to get all of those things, keep her job and resume the cordial relationship she had with her boss before the problem arose. In mediation, the worker and her boss will sit down with a mediator and try to figure out the interests they have in common and work towards a solution that will meet those interests.
Private companies, state and federal agencies, labor unions and large, publicly traded corporations are all using mediation to resolve a wide variety of workplace disputes. As Supreme Court Justice Warren E. Burger once said, “Traditional litigation is a mistake that must be corrected. For some disputes trials will be the only means, but for many claims, trials by adversarial contest must in time go the way of the ancient trial by battle and blood. Our system is too costly, too painful, too destructive, and too inefficient for really civilized people.”
William H. Donahue, Jr. is the director and founder of Transitions Mediation Center, with offices in Philadelphia and Haddon Heights, NJ. He is an EEOC-trained mediator. For more information on in-house dispute resolution and conflict management programs contact him at 877-854-0303 or at onedonahue@aol.com.
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