Workplace
Overview
In many workplaces there is a certain suppressed terror of doing things that many people have grown up doing all their lives - foul and inappropriate language, sexual comments and gestures, ethnic jokes, ignoring disabilities, positive discrimination, racial slurs, bullying, dismissals and retrenchments, unsafe work practices, OHS non-compliance generally, etc. All of these can bring a business to its knees very quickly if people in the workplace decide to make serious complaints about them.
The main onus to provide a safe workplace falls on the shoulders of the directors and owners of businesses - and most now have either direct of referred horror stories about actions against businesses, usually brought by disgruntled staff, or union representatives.
Our Approach
We always respond very quickly to workplace disputes as, when they erupt they are usually serious, and they do get worse very quickly.
We rapidly contact each involved party to demonstrate that something is being done, by independent professionals, to sort out what is going on and what needs to be done about it.
Once we have an outline factual background, we like to see the workplace itself and to meet with the parties, either individually or in their respective interest groups.
Depending on circumstances, we may need further factual information and/or need to reality check the stories provided. Extra corroboration may be needed, along with some reliable assessments of the parties' general performance and behaviours.
We move to a mediation forum as soon as possible, where the parties are brought together, perhaps with others who can help to shed light on the situation, to work through the issues and to attempt to reach an agreed outcome.
As Solutionists, we are always looking for creative and constructive solutions. For example, we recently mediated a workplace harassment claim where, in the space of a morning, two parties who had assiduously avoided talking to each, or even being in the same room on site (less than 50 staff in total), for over 5 years, at the end of the process found themselves agreeing to establish a committee to set the rules for acceptable behaviours in the workplace.
Everybody truly won - management received a copy of an agreement that shows they did the right thing to get a workplace problem resolved; the two employees left the room together as (cautious) friends and the rest of the workforce obtained renewed respect for the way management dealt with two people who were both acknowledged to be difficult to work with.
This whole dispute was resolved within 36 hours of original notification, at a total cost of under $1,500.00.
