douglas-johnston

I became interested in mediation after witnessing from a HR perspective  the emotional distress created by formal investigations of conflict situations between staff. I’ve now carried out over 30 mediations, usually as an alternative to formal procedures, with 1-1 and group conflicts. My aim in workplace mediations is to enable colleagues to have a respectful and sustainable working relationship. I’m impartial in that I don’t hold any person to blame for the situation, but I do look for all of them to take responsibility for addressing it. Even where mediation is not 100% successful, and don’t believe anyone who says that it is, the situation will have been moved on and mediation will have caused much less turmoil than a formal investigation would have done.  And when it works well, its great.