/// Five Reasons Why Mediation Should Be Offered in the Workplace

Five Reasons Why Mediation Should Be Offered in the Workplace

Author/Source/Copyright: Claude Dawson Ames

Mediation works very well for cases involving employment issues for a number of reasons such as savings in cost and time, maintenance of the employment relationship, confidentiality, improvement in the management functionality of your business and better morale among employees.

1.  Savings

Mediation often takes much less time than bringing a legal dispute before a court.  If handled correctly, a case that is mediated can be taken care of in just a couple of months, rather than the year or more that your case would normally work through the court system.  Along with this come decreased legal fees because you don’t have to pay as much to your attorney for their time.

2.  Employment Relationship

There are many reasons why you would want to maintain an employment relationship.  The employee who is involved in the employment matter may be especially good at what they do or your company may have spent a lot of money training and hiring them.  From the employee’s perspective, they may not want to leave your company and will want a civil relationship to secure future employment.

3.  Confidentiality

Keeping the proceedings private in an employment dispute is usually important to both parties.  The employee may be concerned about gaining a bad reputation if they are associated with disputes with employers.  The employer may not want the bad public perception that could come with an especially bad case of discrimination or harassment.  Through mediation, the parties can agree to keep the proceedings a secret and if a settlement is reached, the case can be kept out of the court system where it would become a matter of public record.

4.  Improvement in Your Business

There is a very good chance that your employment dispute can indicated that there are serious problems that must be addressed in your business.  If the environment is hostile towards some workers, it can affect all of your employees.  Through mediation, you will have better communication with the person filing the complaint, meaning that you may get a better idea what the problems are.

5.  Higher Morale

When your employees know their voices will be heard, their job satisfaction will go up, meaning that you will have better performance by your staff.  Employees will give you better work if they know that management is open to real communication with them and will actively find a way to settle any disputes.

Oct 12, 2015