‘You don’t need an electrician’ I said to myself as I stared blankly at the results of my Google search for ‘local electrician’. One of the light switches in the living room had finally given up and we could only use the side light. It wasn’t a massive problem but it had to be fixed, hence my reaching for the Ipad to find someone to do it. But really, isn’t this something I should be able to do myself? It’s electricity, get it wrong and the consequences are very serious. Yes, but it’s a minor job, do I really need a fully qualified professional electrician? I’m replacing a light switch not rewiring the whole house. So no, I don’t have to call in the professional but I do need to know how to go about it. To stay safe I need to check what I should do and follow the right process. So I changed my Google search to learn how to change the light switch safely.

What has all this got to do with workplace mediation? It’s an analogy that I think fits quite well with the situation facing the typical HR Manager when dealing with a low level employee conflict. Two employees have fallen out. The line manager has tried to ‘fix’ it but has probably only made things worse and has turned to you as their trusted HR Manager to ‘get it sorted’. Of course you could email the employees a link to the grievance policy and let them go down the formal route. But you know that this is a relationship issue, and suspect the formal process is only going to make things worse. They need to talk it through with someone to help them. So do you call in a professional mediator? Like me with the electrical socket, isn’t that heavy handed for this situation? You know you should be able to do this yourself, but how?

The above situation is common in the workplace today and was highlighted at the Civil Mediation Council conference on workplace mediation in February. The message is that there is a lot that the HR professionals within organisations can do to nip conflict in the bud but support is needed in terms of the skills, process and tools to know how to go about it. Let’s be clear, I’m not talking about entrenched conflict which has already escalated and is in real danger of having negative impact beyond the two people involved. By all means give me or my professional mediator colleagues a call if this is the case. No, I’m talking here about everyday occurrences where people fall out, often through clash of personalities and breakdown of communication, where they haven’t managed to sort it out themselves and just need an extra hand. Like my light switch analogy it’s a DIY task, something you should be able to do yourself given the necessary skills and knowledge.

Is the answer to train HR as mediators? There are plenty of courses available to give you ‘accredited mediator’ training but for me this would be overkill. By all means do the full training if you are intending mediation to be a major part or all of your job, but this would not apply to the vast majority of HR professionals. The training is wasted unless you are using what you have learned on a regular basis, mediating cases and developing your skills. For most of the HR population, the need to mediate is more infrequent. It’s more a case of having a toolkit you can turn to as and when needed. To change my light switch I found some step by step guidance which took me through what I needed to do without having in depth electrical knowledge. There were videos and diagrams to guide and show me what to do. The same can be done to support HR professionals. Providing a step by step process, guidance on the skills needed and some handy tools to make it easier gives you the competence and confidence to tackle low level conflict successfully. I call this ‘DIY Mediation’ and I’ve written about it in my recently published book ‘DIY Mediation. The Conflict Resolution Toolkit for HR’.

The DIY Mediation approach is based on HR acting as an impartial facilitator, helping the participants in the conflict find a way forward themselves. Hundreds of people have been trained in this approach and when trying it out through role play it is clear that some of them are initially uncomfortable with this style. This is not surprising. We have been trained over many years as line and HR to ‘sort things out’. Standing back and facilitating is a different approach that takes time to get used to. It takes practice – some people will pick it up fairly easily, others realise it is simply not for them and will look to other options.

DIY Mediation is built around an easy to follow, five step process – the AGREE model. You follow the process and apply the four key skills. Tools and resources such as question sets and form templates ensure the approach is straightforward and practical to utilise.

AGREE comprises five phases from initiating the intervention through to resolution. The five stages take place during two sets of meetings, together with preparation and follow up.

The four key skills of DIY Mediation are

• Questioning
• Active Listening
• Impartiality
• Assertive Communication

Applying the skills and process of DIY Mediation won’t necessarily result in a resolution to the conflict between the participants – in the end it is their responsibility to find a solution. But it gives you an approach that, when used correctly, gives the participants every possibility to resolve their issues and avoid the unnecessary pain of relationship conflict and the damaging costs to the organisation.

Finally, this is not about taking work away from professional mediators – as one myself I’d be shooting myself in the foot! On the contrary I believe that if organisations adopt the mediation style approach for resolving low level conflict it will open the way for using mediation for conflict resolution throughout the organisation, providing a more positive, open and productive workplace culture.

Further information available at www.diymediation.com

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