1. WORKING WITH DIGNITY
A Conflict Audit will allow senior managers, HR professionals and those directly involved to step back, and get an objective, impartial perspective. Our neutral assessors have experience in conflict situations, involving for example allegations of inappropriate behaviour, mismanagement, bullying, harassment, team dysfunction and other sensitive areas. We provide an experienced, qualified workplace dispute resolution expert to liaise with you. They will wish to involve key people who are affected by the situation, and who can play a significant part in its resolution.
The four elements to the process are:
1.1 Client: A public sector body
Situation: A high profile complaint of bullying and employee survey results demonstrating concerns about bullying resulted in a small cross departmental committee being set up to look at the issues. They pooled information and decided to provide training to ensure all employees were aware of what was and was not acceptable behaviour.
Intervention: A training programme was developed using the committee members' examples to provide case studies for the very practical, interactive and skills based sessions.
Outcome: The response to the workshops demonstrated raised awareness and definite changes in behaviour. The Committee has now developed a long term plan to move the work forward, and are considering internal diversity coaches.
1.2 Client: A public sector body
Situation: The number of employee complaints to HR and union officials about harassment and bullying and high labour turnover in one department caused concern.
Intervention: Focus groups were facilitated to discover the key issues in the department and a report provided to the HR Manager. It became clear that the senior manager in that department had little understanding of the negative impact of her language and body language, and that of her first reports who were copying her management style. A two day "Working with Dignity" workshop was developed for the small team together with a half day workshops for all staff members.
Outcome: The senior manager struggled with the feedback as did her team, but the post questionnaire feedback revealed the team leaders had learned a great deal about constructive behaviour and managing with dignity. Post feedback forms 6 weeks after the staff half days sessions indicated improved departmental relationships.
Examples of Feedback from previous Diversity with Dignity Workshops
Provoked a great deal of re-thought as to how to approach and then constructively deal with the problems. Very useful on a practical level i.e. be proactive and deal with inappropriate behaviour.
I thought the course was an extremely useful exercise and highlighted the need to be aware of others feelings and how your own behaviour and attitude can impact upon others without you knowing about it.
It is useful to see how minor problems can escalate quite quickly in the workplace into majors ones simply due to misunderstandings, and it was helpful to get some guidance on the better ways of avoiding or defusing these problems.
I do think this course was valuable in that I saw certain things differently afterwards.
2. COACHING
2.1 Client: A Pharmaceutical Manufacturer
Situation:A complaint of sexual harassment had been made against a newly made up team leader. He insisted that the remark she had complained about was just the usual departmental banter that she had always joined in herself, and had never minded on previous occasions.
Following an investigation he reluctantly accepted coaching and a warning, rather than a final warning. Following the initial assessment three additional sessions were agreed.
Intervention: During the coaching, it became apparent to the coach, that inappropriate banter was endemic in the organisation, even at senior management level. The coachee learned some tools and techniques to help him to walk away from the banter without responding, and to accept that as a newly made up team leader he would need to adjust his behaviour in future.Outcome: In agreement with the coachee the coach made several organisational recommendations to the HRM.
The company policy on combating bullying and harassment at work was updated in line with our recommendations, which made the dangers of banter, and the possible repercussions, clear. The organisation also introduced Dignity at Work awareness sessions for all staff, including senior management., to raise the profile of the new policy. 2.2 Client:;An organisation within a large Scottish public body.
Situation:Following a complaint of sexual harassment against a senior male manager the disciplinary panel decided on a final written warning and recommended coaching to support the manager in modifying his behaviour.
Intervention: The manager agreed to the coaching and a meeting was set up with himself, his line manager and the coach to agree the required changes in behaviour and confidentiality boundaries.
Outcome: After three sessions the manager reported increased awareness of the factors leading to the complaint, recognised what could be construed as inappropriate behaviour and had some tools and techniques to help him avoid ever being in a similar situation again. As a consequence of this piece of work the CEO authorised the budget for Working with Dignity workshops for all employees.
3. CORE MEDIATION SKILLS WORKSHOP
3.1 Client: A City based legal Firm.Situation: The number of grievances had risen substantially and some of the partners had experienced the discomfort of coping with high levels of employees emotion. The firm was keen to find some method of managing such situations better and to improve their conflict management skills.
Intervention: Following discussions it was decided that a two day workshop designed as an introduction to the process and core skills of mediation would be useful.
Outcome: The group consisted of partners and HR specialists and although they found the two days challenging the feedback demonstrated they felt they had learned a useful technique for managing conflict and improved their skills and confidence at the same time. The group decided to meet following the workshop to agree how they might introduce mediation into the Firm's policies and processes.
4. MEDIATION
4.1 Client:Public SectorSituation: About 12 months prior to the mediation, an employee had complained about her manager and then took 12 months off with sickness absence as a result of the relationship difficulty. On her return to work, there was concern that the basic problem would re-emerge and the respondent, the employee's immediate manager, was keen to try mediation.
Intervention: The employee was offered an informal telephone call with the mediator to help her to understand the process prior to agreeing to undertake the mediation. This enabled her to ask questions and to feel comfortable that she would be in a safe environment. As a consequence the employee agreed to mediation.
Outcome: Both parties engaged with the mediator and although there was no formal agreement made between the two parties they were both happy with the process and fed back that it was a very positive result and had cleared the air significantly. On return to work, they managed to work together without any of the previous issues being raised.
5. CONFLICT AND MEDIATION CASE STUDIES
5.1 Sector: Manufacturing IndustrySituation: A female employee had complained informally to the HRM regarding sexual harassment from some of her colleagues. It was decided that the complaint needed to be investigated, which identified that there were divisions within the team, accompanied by bitchiness, back stabbing and blame, resulting in poor relationships, and exacerbated by ineffective line management.
Intervention: It was agreed to offer the line manager and the team a conflict resolution programme facilitated by a mediator to help raise, identify and resolve the issues. This was accepted, and a programme was agreed.
The facilitator/mediator met with each of the team individually, followed by a joint session with all the team, and to close the loop a meeting with the line manager to address the teams concerns.
Outcome: The team session resulted in good discussions, from which they developed a detailed action plan defining how individual behaviour needed to change to resolve the team's conflicts, and produced a number of work based concerns to address with their line manager.
Each of the teams concerns were discussed in turn during the meeting with the line manager, and an action plan was agreed to help ensure the team and the line manager worked together to address the concerns raised.
5.2 Sector: An organisation within a large Scottish public body.
Intervention: The employee attended the initial one to one and it became apparent that the manager was very busy and she didn't see much of her. It also appeared that the two were very different personalities and she had been considering other roles in the wider organisation before she went off with stress.
At the beginning of the line manager's one to one session with the mediator it soon became very obvious that she had not been well briefed by her line manager, it therefore took some time for the mediator to gain the confidence of the line manager however she reluctantly agreed to attend the following joint session.
Outcome:At the beginning of the line manager's one to one session with the mediator it soon became very obvious that she had not been well briefed by her line manager, it therefore took some time for the mediator to gain the confidence of the line manager however she reluctantly agreed to attend the following joint session.
6. PERSONAL STRESS MANAGEMENT
6.1 Client: A public sector body Situation: Following a high profile case and with imminent organisational change planned, the Senior Management Team expressed a need to determine the key concerns of staff and to understand what staff would find useful to help them cope.Intervention: Focus groups were set up with all staff having the opportunity to attend. The report resulting from the focus groups identified some key issues and a number of training needs.
Outcome: The report was made available to the team planning the organisational changes and in the interim a change management programme was developed which included some practical tools and techniques for managing stress at work.
Examples of Feedback from this Stress Management Workshop
Really enjoyable course!! Definitely got a lot out of it. Trainer made it far more interesting than I anticipated.
Useful also in general life. Lots of tips which I will be passing onto others too!!, which may in turn reduce my stress.
Course made me realise what issues cause me stress, and how I need to deal with them. A very worthwhile course, even for those that appeared sceptical at the beginning! I now have more understanding of how some people act/react as they do.
7. INVESTIGATION TRAINING
7.1 Sector: A manufacturing organisationSituation: The volume of disciplinaries and grievances were making it difficult for the few experienced managers to give them the time necessary, when they had full time operational roles to fulfil. However the unions were complaining that investigations were neither sufficiently speedy nor thorough, and there were concerns about the fairness of the investigators when they were often known to the parties.
Intervention: All line managers were provided with training to ensure a pool of investigators to choose from so that they would not be known to the parties.
Outcome:T he number of complaints about the quality of the investigations decreased as did concerns about investigator bias.
Examples of Feedback from this Stress Management Workshop
'I am usually sceptical about training courses as I have sat through quite a few which have not engaged me. I felt that this course was excellent and would highly recommend it to others.'
8. CONFLICT AUDIT
8.1 Sector: Sector - IndustrySituation: A dysfunctional team experiencing poor communication between each other, a belligerent and mistrusting culture with a high proportion of gossip and bad feeling
Intervention: Confidential meetings were held with eight individuals providing them all with enough space and time to express their thoughts, feelings and views about their working environment, the issues which were important to them and who they saw their and the team's future with and without changes.
Outcome: Individuals felt they had made a contribution to the improvement of the team by being listened to. The organisation avoided a formal complaint being lodged and a costly investigation. Organisational changes were actioned and improvements to communication and internal process were agreed and implemented.
