Mediation Process

"You can't shake hands with a clenched fist." (Indira Gandhi, 3rd prime minister of India)

Initial Contact

In the first instance, the commissioner (normally a manager or an HR officer) makes an enquiry via email or phone with the brief details of the conflict to be resolved, followed by a more detailed discussion with our Mediator, to establish whether the issues are appropriate for mediation.

Preliminaries

Once it is agreed that mediation would be a suitable intervention, a date is established for individual meetings between the Mediator and each disputant and the joint mediation session. If only two individuals are in dispute, it is normally possible to conduct the one-to-one meetings in the morning and the joint mediation in the afternoon of the same day, though occasionally the following morning will also be required to complete the mediation between the disputants. If there are three or more individuals in conflict, the overall process will take longer.

The line manager must ensure that the disputants are available for the one-to-one meeting and the mediation session, and in some circumstances the following morning.

On the day

Confidential one-to-one meetings are conducted with each of the disputants in the morning, these normally take around 1.5 hr each. The joint mediation session in afternoon may take between 2 and 4 hours, sometimes longer (especially if more than two people are involved in the dispute). The Mediator uses her specialist skills to assist the disputants with identifying and clarifying the issues contributing to the conflict, helping them communicate more clearly with each other, and encouraging the individuals involved to come up with "win-win" solutions that would be acceptable to both/all parties. At the end of the mediation the disputants draw up a voluntary written agreement, a copy of which is made available to their line manager. No other notes or reports are kept to preserve confidentiality.

Follow-up

A follow-up mediation meeting can be arranged to offer additional support to the disputants and to help ensure that the voluntary agreement is working for them.