Sheridan was a Lead Sponsor for the UK Mediation Conference in July. Our session was entitled ‘Getting in the Room’, because that can often be the hard bit. You’ve offered mediation, found the budget, secured buy-in and then for one of more of the parties, the idea of inviting a ‘stranger’ to help them communicate with someone they work alongside, becomes insurmountably challenging or embarrassing.
Our experience has been that most employees or managers fighting shy of mediation are not doing so to be difficult or vindictive, but because they (and perhaps also their advisors) have grown up with the traditional adversarial grievance model which everyone thinks is required by the Acas Code but actually is not.
So with Sheridan and CEDR Mediator Tracey Fox and employment lawyer David Whincup we drew the teeth on a number of the hesitations and arguments most commonly used by parties to workplace disputes to justify their reluctance to mediate. Good reasons do exist, but they are rarer than most people think.
To read and download our ‘Getting in the Room’ and ‘Making the case for Mediation’ articles, click the images below!
