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0:00:05 - Helen
Hi everyone and welcome to the HR Edit, the podcast from South East Employers, looking at those common and often tricky HR questions. Today, sarah and I are joined by Jennifer, who is one of the directors at South East Employers and one of the most long-standing members of the team. Hi Jennifer, hello Helen, hi Sarah Jennifer, could you tell us a little bit about your role in South East Employers? Hi, sarah. Jennifer, could you tell us a little bit about your role in South East Employers?

0:00:25 - Jennifer
Yes, I've been with South East Employers for over 17 years, originally as the regional director and now I'm focusing more now as part of a future planned retirement, on just doing the, the areas of work that I really love doing, and that's particularly I mean mediation is one of my main joys in so many ways. But in addition to that I do a lot of workplace investigations, assisting where there are grievances or disciplinaries. I help with job evaluation, restructuring and just a lot of areas that just helps organizations to I don't know to perform better and to have happier, happier workforce. 

0:01:13 - Sarah
Fantastic thanks, Jennifer. I know you're one of our longest standing members and you're kind of a, you do pretty much everything at SEE, which is brilliant and a bit of a tree of knowledge. I suppose we can come to you for most things. We're going to talk today about mediation and specifically workplace mediation, because you are our specialist mediator. 

0:01:36 - Jennifer
Yes, I mean, I've been doing mediation for probably 10 to 12 years now. Originally I trained with ACAS and then subsequently I've trained with ACAS in delivering training to people who want to become mediators and now we run our own mediation training course which very closely follows the ACAS principles, because, as far as I'm concerned, ACAS is the industry standard and you know it's tried and tested, it's very well respected as a process and, from my own personal experience, a huge success rate. You know it, it's absolutely, for me, one of the most satisfying parts of my role, really, because ultimately in one day, if it be put to bed, resolved. 

And you know, the best part is when the two people who were in conflict at work walk away at the end, having shaken hands. 

In some cases they give each other a hug. There can be tears, just with the realisation that there's so much more to life than having this conflict going on in the workplace. And that's where I get my satisfaction from watching two people who are in possibly absolute agony at the beginning of the day being able to find a resolution themselves. It's not me telling them what to do. It's them talking, exploring, sharing their hurt feelings, bringing it all out into the open and looking at it and then starting to think how on earth did we get here? And yeah, just with, you know me helping to facilitate a process, bringing it out so that the end those, those two people, can move forward together. It's not necessarily going to fix everything overnight. It's not a magic wand. There's a lot of hard work, but at the end of it they can move forward and put all this to bed, draw a line and say, right, this is the beginning of a new start for our working relationship. 

0:04:04 - Sarah
Am I right in thinking that you go, I mean because you do in person. Thinking that you go I mean because you do in person, don't you? I know you can do it virtually. 

0:04:08 - Jennifer
Yes, 

0:04:10 - Sarah
I know you prefer in person. Am I right in thinking that you were sort of called into an organisation, maybe a council, maybe a fire and rescue service, and I know you've done some other companies as well councils? ? 

0:04:17 - Jennifer
Yes, absolutely. 

0:04:19 - Sarah
You go into a, into a workplace where two people are having an issue, two or more actually. 

0:04:21 - Jennifer
Yes, yes, I do teams as well. 

0:04:23 - Sarah
You will spend the day and, like you say, facilitate a conversation where, hopefully, any issues can be resolved. Am I right in thinking as we do? 

0:04:38 - Jennifer
Yes, absolutely To go back right to the beginning. As soon as somebody makes contact with us to say we have an issue, we're not sure what to do with it, I can obviously talk to them about whatever the issue is and advise right from the onset whether it's suitable for mediation. Not everything's suitable for mediation, but many things are. Surprisingly many things are. So I can have a chat and just find out a little bit more about the situation, give advice and if it's suitable for mediation. The next steps are that we get, or that the manager gets, agreement from the parties that they're willing to go forward with mediation. Now we have a leaflet that gives lots of information about this that we can provide, that's shared with the parties so they feel comfortable, they understand what this is about, what they're going to enter into, what hopefully the outcome will look like. 

And then, once we've agreed a date and the venue is usually at the town hall where the employer works, the employees work we agree a date, we agree a time and I will come up and spend the day working with those two individuals. Prior to that I will have a telephone conversation with each of them just to introduce myself, talk it through a little bit answer any immediate questions they might have, really to try and put them at ease before we start the mediation. And then I come up and I meet with them and then the process very simply is I'll meet with the first person and we have a confidential conversation, just the two of us, and anything they tell me I keep confidential. And then they go and I meet with the second person and we repeat that. Then we break for lunch and then in the afternoon the three of us will get together and we have a structure that we follow. 

I sort of look after everybody, make sure everybody feels safe and comfortable, and we have ground rules that we work with about confidentiality, because whatever's said in the mediation, in the joint meeting, I will expect both parties and myself to keep it confidential yeah, absolutely. And then we work through all the issues and once we've got everything out on the table and that's the tricky part because it brings out the emotions, it brings out the hurt feelings, the anxieties, the anger, whatever it might be, but it's all done in a very constructive way so that everything is put on the table and then we explore those things and we look at well, how has that affected you. What did that do for you? But the really important thing is that each person starts to see it from the other person's perspective. 

Yes, of course, and you're facilitating that yeah yeah, and it's about putting yourself in the other person's shoes, so an employee can see it from a manager's perspective. You know what are some of the constraints on that manager. Why hasn't that manager been able to give them what they wanted them to give them? But also for the manager to see it from the employee's perspective or the team member's perspective about well, how is it for you, how's it been for you? How have I come across to you that the way they speak to each other is actually not very helpful or comes across in a way that seems belittling or demeaning in some way? And you know, it's a fantastic opportunity for people to then self-reflect. 

Yes, and it's not about apportioning blame and saying you know, I'm certainly not there to judge anybody. It's not about saying, well, I think you were right and you were wrong, which is what tends to happen in a formal process. Somebody is making a decision. This is about the two parties exploring together and then thinking, ok, if we can draw a line and move forward, what's that going to look like? And then we get into the really positive stuff about talking about what. What can each other do for the other person to make it work, going forward? 

0:08:53 - Sarah
It sounds like, like you say, a very emotional, a very emotional day for all parties and probably for yourself as well Jennifer quite draining, I would imagine, kind of picking up on everybody's body language and everything else. Yes, you said that you know quite a range of things can be sorted through mediation. And is mediation that sort of first step before potentially somebody takes something to a formal grievance? Or we've spoken about it with Ben and with David in the past, about investigations and frankly they sound pretty scary and I know you're very well versed in all types of investigations. But is mediation maybe a sort of first step that a HR team could potentially try to resolve something before moving on? 

0:09:31 - Jennifer
Yes, I mean. Interestingly, mediation can be brought in at a number of stages, if you try and imagine what we call a conflict life cycle, which is just an arc going up and coming down on the other side. So from the beginning it could be very low level. There's just a few grumbles, there's a few issues going on, some team members don't seem very happy. Now, normally I would expect a manager to be confident to talk to people and deal with that, and so I wouldn't suggest jumping into mediation at to nip things in the bud. So if it's looking as if things can't quite be resolved by a management intervention, you know, having a chat, finding out what's going on or it could be the manager is part of the problem, in which case not the best, you know, the best solution Sometimes just having an external person coming in and just sitting down and helping people to perhaps reconsider or get things back into proportion about what's actually going on and what does this mean? And are they, are they projecting themselves in the best way to get a good outcome? And so we can do a lot of exploring and we'll go through the mediation process and hopefully nip it in the bud and get it resolved. 

And then, if you continue up this conflict life cycle up towards the top of it where things have got quite serious. Perhaps there's been a complaint that's been raised or it may have gone into a formal grievance, sometimes after a grievance or after the formal process, and perhaps there's been found to be no substance to the grievance, or there is some substance but nothing serious enough to warrant going into a different formal procedure, such as a disciplinary, because something has been found. What seems to have happened at the end of that process is people have got into position, you know, they've come armed to their grievance meeting with their bundles of documents and perhaps their union rep or their colleague or whoever, and the manager has got an HR person with them and it's all got very, very difficult, very, potentially quite confrontational. And then in that situation you have what we tend to call the hearing manager, who's having to hear both sides of the case. Perhaps there's lots of evidence produced and then they have to find, make a finding. Now, from my experience, once that has happened, even if they find in favour of the employee with the grievance, usually nobody's happy. There's usually fallout, there's upset, there's people who feel bitter. 

Why did I have to go through this process. Why couldn't it have been dealt with earlier, and so mediation might be one of the suggested outcomes of that grievance, and then I might be called in to come. I find, having done it then when I sit in and do a mediation and certainly it can help I just wish why didn't they call us in at the early stage, before it became formalised? All of this could have been avoided. It's a fascinating thing, and, like you say, to knit things in the bud early when there this could have been avoided. 

0:12:56 - Sarah
It's a fascinating thing, and, like you say, to nip things in the bud early when there's there's some grumbles and it's starting to escalate and it doesn't seem like people are going to be able to resolve it themselves. We spoke about doing it with two people. How does it work when there's a group of people? Is it a similar process where you'd meet everybody and then you'd have a sort of big and how? How is that for you? 

0:13:21 - Jennifer
Going back to a comment you made earlier, yes, it is quite draining for the mediator because it is, yeah, full-on concentration all day. For the parties it's also quite draining, although they do have a little break in the morning because only one of them and I and I and I see everybody. So, yes, for the, for the mediator, it is full-on concentration and not only am I listening to everything I'm being told, but I'm also I'm a bit like the helicopter. I'm having to make sure people feel comfortable and safe and and I'm looking at that bigger picture and I'm trying to think how can I help these two to move in the right direction? Because I I need to offer some, some sort of guidance in in terms of the structure. I don't I don't give them the answers, because what my role really as a mediator is to enable them to come up with their own answers, because it's not for me to tell them what's right, what's wrong, what the best course of action is, because only those two individuals know what will work for them and it's very personal. It's about those two people being able to sort out their own discrete issues with each other, and I find that if they come up with their solution. They are more likely to own it and to make it work because they're already talking to each other. So it's a very, it's quite a complex situation, you know, process to go through from the mediator's point of view. But really my ultimate goal is to help them to find their own resolution and to move forward. 

And so sometimes there are what we call dysfunctional teams, or it might be two or three people within a team. They might just all not get on with each other. Or what tends to happen is two people might not get on with the third person. That third person is starting to feel victimised, bullied, ignored, whatever that might be, and so there are different approaches you can take where it's more than just the two individuals. Some options are for me to come up and spend two days up there and we do mediation with party A and B on that day and then on the second day again with party A but party C. So we go through the whole process again for the second day. Now that you could say, well, that's a bit draining for party A because they're there twice, but at the end of the once they're in the process and in the zone of looking at the issues and knowing that hopefully this can help resolve the team dysfunction, it tends to work quite well Once you get into a bigger team. 

From my experience, there are different ways that that can be explored and and that might be doing some individual discussions with individuals, which could be done virtually, because it's just me and the other person. So we go through that and I ask them questions and get them to reflect and to start to think about how could this be resolved. And then what we can do is create a sort of team day where we all come together at a venue, usually at the organisation's offices or or nearby, and we spend the day trying to rebuild the team, and that's, in a way, perhaps a bit more of a team building exercise rather than the mediation, but it has the ingredients of mediation again. Yeah, there's another way of doing stuff Exactly and they're looking for their own resolution. It's not me or a manager coming in and telling them what they need to do. 

And sometimes we end up doing a team charter which is almost like the collective agreement of actions that they're all going to undertake. 

And I did do one and this was a few years ago where the council said we'll send you away to off-site to do your mediation and, interestingly, we went to the local zoo and we did the mediation in a it was like a mobile classroom really, because they do a lot of education at the zoo and while we were doing our teamwork I happened to notice everybody looking out of the window rather than at me in the flip chart. So when I turned around, there was a little parade of elephants Brilliant Walking past the window, which I thought thought, well, this is rather novel. And at the end of the day, when we'd, when we completed the team charter and we'd we'd sort of completed all the discussions, the zoo allowed us to go with the keeper into the ape house and watch the apes being fed, which for me was a brilliant way to end a a team team building day after some really difficult relationship issues that have been brewing for a long time amongst all those individuals and it's just a collective experience then as well. 

0:18:30 - Sarah
What a different way of thinking about it and actually bringing that team together, having those difficult discussions, but also what sounds like a brilliant sort of shared experience. I think we've covered everything in terms of mediation, Jennifer, but what I've kind of got from you is that actually, mediation is an incredible tool A to sort of nip it in the bud to resolve disputes, to make that workplace environment a happier place. Obviously, HR and managers can recommend mediation as a way forward for people, but those in the dispute clearly have to be very open to the process. Yes, and is that part of your sort of that initial introduction where you you kind of explain to them look that you know this can help you, this is a safe space, this is you know. It sounds really important. 

0:19:16 - Jennifer
Yes. I mean really the organisation, if they're serious about moving forward with this or developing it further if it's already in place. This really needs to come from the top leadership team there. That that's their culture of openness and transparency and empowering employees to speak up and to feel listened and heard. So, thinking about the culture of an organisation, this is about an organisation that is prepared to invest in early intervention. There will be costs involved in investing, because Not only do you need to perhaps review your policies, your procedures, there's going to be communications with your trade unions, your staff representatives, with the senior leadership team, with employees, so that they understand what this is all about and why the organisation is doing this and what's in it for them really. This and what's in it for them really. And then it's thinking about well, are we going to do this as a service internally or are we going to use external mediators or perhaps have a mix of both? So thinking about investing in your managers so they feel confident and are also competent to do mediation internally. That's a good start, and when I do my training to train people to be made mediators, I often talk about little 'm' mediation, because not everybody is necessarily cut out to be a mediator. 

You know, of course, dealing with conflict it's. It's not everybody's cup of tea, but for me managers who understand the processes of mediation and perhaps can get their head around the structure of doing a mediation I've found that that really sets them up in good stead to deal with what I call little 'm' mediation. So they've got some grumbles going on in the team and they can go away and have a chat with one person in a structured way, have a chat with the other one and possibly try and bring them together. But you don't need to call it mediation, you can just call it, you know, let's have a conversation, let's have a chat. You don't seem to be very happy, let's see if we can do something with that. Now clearly that might work, yeah. 

Or if it doesn't work, if, if the issues are just getting a little bit too difficult to deal with in that more very informal way, then that might be a good time to say, well, let's see if we can get somebody to come in and facilitate a more structured way of doing this, this. 

So that's when you either bring in one of your internal mediators, if you have them, or where you come to the likes of South East Employers and in one day we can come in and hopefully address or help to bring a resolution to that problem. So there are decisions to be made by organisations about do we want internal mediators and then clearly there's a cost in training them and you know their time away from doing the day job when they're actually doing the mediation versus whether you bring in somebody externally who just comes in for the day and then goes again and then that that's caused minimum disruption to the rest of the management cadre.

0:21:53 - Sarah
Yeah, and I know you you do a lot of mediation, Jennifer and I think a lot of people certainly, if you're sort of in dispute with a colleague, perhaps having somebody independent, not from that organisation, actually maybe makes them feel a bit safer. You know, you get that absolute confidentiality, that it's not just somebody that you're going to see every day passing the corridor, yeah.

0:22:59 - Jennifer
YWell, that's it, isn't it't it? Because I mean, I tend to be asked to come in to do the more senior ones, because you know, if a senior manager wants to say to somebody, actually I know I've got some, you know, there are some issues I don't feel very confident as a manager, possibly, or they want to talk through things that they probably don't want other people internally to hear about and they might just be telling me this and then we can have a chat about how they can come across to the team member where there are the issues. So I find sometimes just enabling senior managers to talk to me about perhaps some of their concerns and we can address that in our confidential one-to-one meeting and then nobody knows anything about that in the rest of the organisation. I mean, my mediation can be between Chief Executives and leaders of the organisation, leaders of the council. It can be between leaders of the council or councillors and Monitoring Officers, right through to mediation down at the depot, and I've done some very interesting mediations from the depot right up to the leader of the council and lots of places in between. 

So no mediation is the same. It's all about the two individuals and what they bring. I call it sort of perhaps it's almost coming to a party. You know you've got to bring something to the party to make it work, because if people come in and just sit with their arms folded and they're not prepared to talk about things, well, we're not going to get anywhere. So I just find, in having spoken to them prior to the day we talk it through, I get them to think about what would they like to achieve, what do they want to resolve and then that's what we work on during the day.

0:24:43 - Sarah
So they're comfortable with you as well as somebody who's going to be. 

0:24:49 - Jennifer
That's important yes, because it's about trust. You know, yes, very quickly. As a mediator, I have to build trust with those two individuals. They've never met me before, they're not going to see me after the day, but they have to trust in me and my professionalism, the fact that I will keep things confidential, the fact that I am working with them, that I'm not taking sides. I'm not judging them. I'm there to make them feel safe and my goal the same as theirs, hopefully is to help them find a resolution.

0:25:14 - Helen
Thank you Sarah and Jennifer and to everyone for listening. If you would like more information about conflict resolution and mediation offered by SEE team please visit our website at www.seemp.co.uk where you'll find more information on in-house mediator training courses and information about using our mediators, and it also includes an overview of what mediation covers and what is involved. You can find the hr edit on apple podcast, spotify or wherever you get your podcast, and be sure to check out the episodes to date in season three and seasons one and two. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week. 

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