When supervisors are promoted, they should have a subtitle under their new title: resolver of conflicts, great and small, which threatens workplace cohesion, productivity, and morale. Might be a bit long for a plaque on […]
“In an organizational hierarchy every employee tends to rise or get promoted to his or her level of incompetence.” Laurence J. Peter, The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong. Mr. Peter describes what many […]
When you are ill or hurt, you talk about your concerns and symptoms with the understanding that your health care providers can’t go back home and tell their dinner party guests all about your issues. […]
People choose mediation because it is a voluntary (in most cases), nonbinding process that does not affect their ability to pursue further legal action. These are important benefits of mediation, but they can also pose a […]
Mediation is a voluntary process; sometimes, though, “voluntary” can get a little murky if employers are “strongly recommending” mediation or, in fact, requiring it before other steps can be taken. Ontario, after all, does have […]
You’ll often find lists of tips for dealing with harassment at work. One that I recently came across advised that we take a “work stress inventory to identify” sources of stress and write a “joy […]
The mediation agreement plays a crucial role in the mediation process. It is a way of saying, “This is what we’re all doing here; this is how we have to conduct ourselves; these are the […]
Author Gabrielle Zevin has said, “I have so much paperwork. I’m afraid my paperwork has paperwork.” Most of us can relate. The point of mediation is to create an opportunity for parties to communicate and […]
How many Facebook friends do you have? 200? 500? 1,000? Now, how many “real” friends do you have? Cornell researchers found that we have an average of two confidants. Two. We run the same risk […]
Mediation is not an adversarial process. It isn’t, or shouldn’t be, us vs. them. It is a process by which both parties can work to discover their own solutions. A mediator is not an advocate. […]
