HUMAN LAW MEDIATION

Employment Tribunal Claims surge but will workplace mediation?

Acas has published its annual report for 2007-08. The figures show a jump in the number of tribunal claims received by Acas for conciliation, with the number of claims by main ground of complaint rising from 105,177 last year to 151,249 this year.

Including all grounds of complaint, the total number of claims received by Acas rose from 180,420 last year to 227,782 this year, a rise of 26 per cent. The jump can be attributed to a substantial increase in the number of equal pay complaints, up to 58,513 from 27,497 last year.

This made equal pay the most cited ground of complaint. Unfair dismissal, which is usually the most popular ground of claim, was second with 43,231 total complaints.

For me what is interesting data is theat we have not factored in any job losses which seem imminent as the UK economy runs into difficulties.

For the free guide my firm has produced on avoiding Employment Tribunal claims please click here.

As we head into recession and a wave of redundancies does the Human Resources profession have some flair and imagination?

As we hear news about more redundancies and impending economic doom Human Resource Professonals now face the prospect of dealing with more disciplinary hearings and grievances etc.

Not necessarily a pleasant place to be.

Against such a background what will be interesting if some HR professionals will start applying more flair in the grievance and disciplinary process and seeking to use mediation where it is important that the employee relationship can be retained.

My experience of HR professionals is they do not use mediation and many have no interest in knowing.

However the benefits of using mediation at an early stage include:

• Enabling the parties to consider a process that may not necessarily occurred to them
• Involving a neutral third party through the mediation process trained to
  work with parties to facilitate communication that is geared towards an
  agreed and lasting settlement
• Changing the focus for the parties away from past towards potential
  solutions and the needs of the future
• Keeping and/or moving the negotiation out of the public arena through the
  mediation process
• Providing savings in legal and management costs
• Achieving a binding solution - over 70 per cent of mediations reach a solution

Theese issues are explored further in my firm's free Guide to keeping disputes out of Court.

Children of conflict - Stress - It is in the Middle East and unfortunately in our workplace and at our schools

A very thoughtful piece in the Guardian on the impact of the violence on the younger generation on both sides of the border in Gaza-Israel.

As the article writes "Sleeping problems, fears, and fits of aggression are just some of the many symptoms of severe stress affecting the majority of children in Gaza and Sderot.

They live on the frontline of the world's oldest conflict, which in the past eight years has killed 5,848 people, wounded thousands more and traumatised countless families. Raziel has spent four years in therapy; Nour has been seeing counsellors for six months"

In addition, "If psychological symptoms are any indication, Gaza and Sderot could be in the throes of an emerging epidemiological disaster.

A study of children and their families in Sderot last October revealed an epidemic of severe stress.

Twenty-eight per cent of adults, three times the national average, and an even higher proportion of children, suffered post traumatic stress disorder. Children aged seven to 12 suffered most, with 74% experiencing extreme fear, 67% refusing to talk or visit places that remind them of an attack, and 57% enduring nightmares and other sleep difficulties."

Post Traumatic Stress is present at its most extreme level within warzones but for those who live and work in Western Countries  and thankfully safer environments also permeates in many of our lives.

Lawyers will deal with in such cases as personal injury and workplace bullying. Many children exposed to bullying will  experience it  and will suffer consequences such as anger, lack of concentration and loss of self esteem for the rest of their lives which will have a massive impact on their lives.

The solution is the elimination of conflict to prevent the trauma arising in the first place. Can diplomats and politicians find the skill to solve the middle east problem? At a lower level can mediators, counsellors and lawyers exercise skill to help their clients and opponents resolve their traumas? 

Would you like to save your Company £20,000?

An interesting article on the CIPD website exploring mediation and its benefits.

"Organisations must mediate with employees to resolve disputes if they are to reduce cases going to tribunal, the CIPD has warned.

Employment tribunal claims cost companies on average £20,000 a year, rising to over £210,000 for companies with 10,000 or more staff.

But for firms using mediation, only 3 per cent experience employees taking cases to tribunals, revealed the CIPD’s first research on the subject.

And companies that train employees in mediation have fewer tribunal claims, the survey of 800 organisations found. Despite the potential cost savings, almost 60 per cent of the companies surveyed have never used mediation in workplace conflict.

Of those that do, four-fifths report that it helps to improve relationships between employees, 71 per cent say it reduces the stress of formal disciplinary or grievance procedures, and half say it helps to avoid the cost of tribunals."

On the one hand you have to be cautious about any form of data which is brought into play - However the survey was of 800 organisations and the number of 60% never having used workplace mediation does seem if anything too low. Food for thought as hr professionals in my experience remain somwhat wary of using mediation and seem more comfortable using tried and tested techniques.

Professor Roger Steare Master of the Ethics hits the Times

We live in times of never-ending concious choice where our moral and ethical DNA re being frequently questioned. Against this background a person's work I really respect is Professor Roger Steare and the the ethicability Moral DNA Test which he has orchestrated is being featured in the Times Online and its's free.

To see the link in the Times,click here -As well as offering anyone, anywhere in the world the opportunity to  understand how we prefer to make moral decisions, it will also provide  us with valuable research data describing how "moral DNAvaries by  age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, education, religion and politics!

As the Times writes " What would you do if, when you visit the ATM to withdraw £100, it dispenses £200 because it has been incorrectly stacked with £20 notes and not £10 notes. Would you keep the cash or return it to the bank? If you return the money would it be because: (a) It is wrong not to return someone else’s property; (b) It wouldn’t be fair to the bank’s shareholders; or (c) I might get found out and prosecuted for theft.

Each of the answers a, b or c is correct, with each representing one of the three main moral philosophies that guide our sense of what is right, according to Roger Steare, visiting professor of organisational ethics at Cass Business School in London and the author of ethicability.

Answer a represents our principled conscience - we do what’s right because it is the courageous, fair or kind thing to do. We often use this conscience in our close relationships. The problem is that principles often conflict and doing the right thing can be difficult, Professor Steare says."