Do you know how much money is spent by businesses dealing with workplace disputes?
According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) the cost of workplace disputes is an estimated annual £33bn to UK businesses. It is also a drain on precious time, taking up 20% of leadership time and resulting in 370 million lost days.
Is your business part of this statistic?
I have been dealing and helping resolve workplace disputes for many years and the general feedback I receive from participants to a mediation process and asked to give to the HR team is that they would all have preferred the opportunity of meeting with a mediator before a grievance or investigation or disciplinary policy were implemented. The reason for this is that once such a policy is implemented, the very nature of the investigation is adversarial and divisive and therefore detrimental in maintaining team cohesiveness and trust.
The outcome, even if the claims are not substantiated, result in the claimant feeling let down that their perception of the situation they reported has been devalued and no credence given, and for the person who is being investigated, they feel personally attacked and in a perverse way have the same emotions the original claimant had when putting forward a claim.
I have found that by giving employees the opportunity of speaking to a mediator, in confidence, before a complaint of any sort is lodged, provides a better outcome at a greatly reduced cost in time and energy on behalf of all the parties involved.
I provide a safe and confidential environment to allow people to have that difficult conversation. I provide a listening ear and ask pertinent questions, so that I can help others discover their own solutions to problems and opportunities. Instead of a third party figuring out what to do next, I can help them develop their own problem-solving skills to come up with their own solutions, which in turn maintains better relationships in the team, with no person feeling de-valued or experiencing low self-esteem. This provides a great opportunity for personal development and provides life skills for use in both the personal and work environment.
As a Business Peacemaker I started out as a litigation lawyer dealing with employment disputes and then becoming a workplace mediator – my whole approach has gone full circle and my approach now is prevention is better than cure.
I use a resource which clients love because it helps them identify where individuals are trusted and add value. Helping individuals know and understand their natural talent and where they are most trusted and add value gives an individual a sense of self-worth, a team that looks out for each other and a business which reaps the rewards of great staff satisfaction AND increased revenue and profits.
Surely you want your business to be part of that statistic, rather than the one stated at the start of this article.
For more information, please get in touch with me.
