How to Mediate Conflict Between Employees

Sometimes, it can seem like your workplace is just one stolen teabag away from a full-blown meltdown. Disputes between employees, or employees and management, are inevitable. And they can be not only disruptive but also financially costly. Ignoring them, however, can cost you even more.Here's our quick guide to mediation and arbitration in the workplace.

Mediation vs arbitration: What's the difference?

Let's begin with a few definitions. When a third-party intervenes to try to solve a workplace dispute, three methods can come into play: mediation, conciliation and arbitration.

Mediation

Mediation is when an impartial third-party tries to help an employee and their employer, or two or more employees reach an agreement that makes them happy. It's usually used after informal discussions haven't worked out.Mediation is voluntary. It shouldn't be used to try to solve problems that have to be formally investigated, such as discrimination or harassment.If you decide you need external professional help, you can find a mediation service here.

Conciliation

Conciliation is similar to mediation. But where the mediator's job is to help the parties find a solution, the conciliator has a more active role. In the UK, conciliation is typically used when someone has already made a claim at an employment tribunal. Acas has a useful guide.

Arbitration

Arbitration involves a third-party making a binding decision on a case after weighing up all the issues.The employer and employee have to agree to an arbitrator's decision being final and legally binding. In instances where no agreement has been reached, the case can go to an employment tribunal.For the purposes of this article, we'll focus on mediating conflict between employees and how to survive it.

How to mediate disputes between employees

Firstly, let's be clear about the sort of workplace issues we're talking about. They could be:

• Between employees and within teams
• Allegations of harassment, bullying and discrimination
• About absence
• Between managers
• About unfair dismissal and redundancy
• About change
• Around failing to make reasonable adjustments
• About equal pay or other legal matters

If you're a manager and it's part of your job to sort out a workplace conflict, you're going to need a strategy to defuse this type of situation – fast. If matters escalate, things can start to get not only disruptive but also expensive.

Plan, schedule and set up

Find out who's involved in the conflict, then get them in a room together. Make it a pleasant environment, so everyone has the best chance of achieving a resolution.

Explain the process

Set out the ground rules and explain what your role will be. Your employees might not have come across a neutral facilitator before.

Make your position clear

Let the parties know that you won't pick sides. It's pretty much impossible for you as someone outside the conflict to know what happened. You should simply focus on helping resolve the conflict in an adult manner.

Set the scene

Allow each party to briefly summarise their viewpoint. Don't allow interruptions. The aim is for everyone to understand each other's positions. If things get out of hand, be ready to step in.

Stagger the presentations

When you stagger the presentations, the balance of power moves smartly from one side to the other. Traditionally, mediation theory has held that each side should make their statements at the same time. But this tends to create a hostile atmosphere.

Don't make it personal

You should never make matters personal. That means depersonalising your comments and dealing only with the issue at hand. Don't say something like, "That's just typical of you, John." Instead, consider an alternative, such as, "We'll have to look more closely at why this keeps occurring."Keeping these inflammatory remarks out of the conversation is far easier in writing, where we have editing tools. In a live discussion, it can be much more difficult: you'll need to stay alert and on top of your game to achieve the level of depersonalisation that you need.