Working Mediation Case Studies

Case Study: Team Mediation

The team manager contacted me after a member of his team had made a complaint that she felt excluded by the rest of the team. The complaint was investigated and though no fault was found, the investigation did bring to light a number of issues within the team which could and were causing conflict. The team of ten had worked together for over three years.

Team mediation works in much the same way as a mediation between two individuals. The principles and structure are the same but as more individuals are involved the process will take longer and the mediator has to be experienced in handling the group dynamics and the emotions which may arise. In this instance a decision was taken that it would be an advantage to have two mediators present; this often helps in situation where emotions may be running high. Having two mediators was an advantage during the early stages of the team mediation as one member of the team became quite emotional and left the room on several occasions. This meant that one mediator could follow her to offer support with the other mediator staying with the remaining team, ensuring that no parties felt any bias or side taking – the mediators were able to demonstrate neutrality.

During my initial discussion over the phone with the team manager, he stated that the individual who had made the complaint had returned to work 6 months previously following an absence of almost a year. She felt that though she had made every effort to fit back into the team, the team had somehow moved on and were now deliberately excluding her by withholding information and in some instances were refusing to include her in shared work projects.

This team mediation took place over two and a half days; the first day was spent conducting individual meetings with all members of the team. This allowed the opportunity to gain understanding of what had been happening within the team and to understand differing perspectives on the conflict as well as gaining an impression of the group dynamics, such as who were allies within the group. From these meetings a team mediation was set up for a few days later in a meeting room. By this time we had started to draw a list of some of the issues which needed to be addressed; the set up of the room in which 5 of the team worked created an inadvertent physical barrier between the individual who had raised the original complaint and the rest of the group. Some of the team members had described being fearful of handing over their workload to the person who had been off sick for fear of putting any additional pressure on her following her return. There was an apparent personality clash between another two members of the team and one member of the team was deemed to be causing some difficulties between some members of the team by gossiping about them.

Though confidential details of the mediation cannot be shared, the team worked hard through useful communication to find solutions to their identified issues, and though a couple of the team had been wary of the process initially, everyone contributed to coming up with 10 agreements which would address the issues identified and enable improved future working relations within the team.

I held a follow up meeting with the team ten weeks later and the improvement was instantly noticeable. Individuals within the team felt that their concerns had been addressed and importantly, as a result of the agreement changes had taken place that had caused the improvement of working relations, and since the team mediation members of the team treated each other with more professionalism and respect and were even describing instances of the team having fun together during the course of their working day.

Case Study: Mediation

Background

Michelle and Angela are work colleagues in the support team of a large department in a local government department. Angela has been on maternity leave and the department was reorganised while she was away.

Angela has now returned to work to find that, due to the reorganisation, Michelle has been given other duties including producing management reports and statistics. Michelle is now asking Angela for information and advice on how to produce reports and stats (which was previously within Angela’s remit) and appears to be ‘supervising’ her. Both Angela and Michelle used to be very good friends.

Angela’s Position

Angela is clearly upset and distressed. She has not been informed of the changes and feels that her relationship with Michelle has been badly damaged. She has lost trust in her friend and feels that Michelle has gone behind her back while she was away.

Michelle’s Position

Michelle assumes that Angela knows more about the changes to the reorganisation than she does. She thinks Angela has started being obstructive when she asks her for things and believes that Angela is jealous of her new ‘role’, which is why she does not seem to acknowledge the changes. Their relationship is steadily deteriorating and finally they have a huge argument over a double room booking.

Mediation

Michelle writes a letter to the HR department stating that she has a grievance with her colleague, Angela, believing that she is being victimised as a result of taking maternity leave. The HR officer responds by offering mediation as a means of resolving the dispute. The HR officer assured Angela about confidentiality and chatted about what mediation can do. Angela looked up further information about the service and guidelines on what to expect in a mediation session from the Working Mediation website.

Michelle decided to give mediation a try and arranged an appointment. Angela was contacted by the HR department to inform her of what had happened and the idea of mediation was introduced. A mediator from Working Mediation then contacted both parties to arrange the mediation.

Angela and Michelle had confidential one-to-one sessions with the mediator. During the individual sessions the mediator saw that the following interests were common to both parties:

They both wanted to:

·Rebuild their friendship with one and other

·Avoid more formal procedures

·Have a chance to rehearse what they needed to say to each other

Joint Mediation

The mediator explained the ground rules to Michelle and Angela for the joint session, which included reaffirming that they would be get:

·Both parties would have equal time to speak

·Whilst one person is speaking there should be no interruptions

·Bothe parties would treat each other in a respectful manner

·Reaffirmation of the confidentiality of mediation

During the joint session Michelle and Angela had an equal opportunity to explain their concerns and to raise issues they felt were causing them anxiety. The meeting was quite intense at first but with the mediator’s direction both Michelle and Angela began to relax and openly discuss their difficulties, making suggestions on how they could work together in the future.

A written record of what was suggested was produced.

Post Script

Both Angela and Michelle realised from the mediation meeting that there had been misunderstandings between them and that their communication had broken down. The written agreement contained things like agreeing to meet up for lunch occasionally where they would openly discuss feelings and any issues that concerned them, as well as more practical work-based solutions, such as clarifying who held responsibility for producing certain reports, and when they could meet in an official capacity to ‘share’ information. Agreeing to these steps would ensure a good future working relationship.

Over the next few weeks they began to rebuild their trust in each other, with the aim of moving their working relationship and friendship onto a normal footing.