Mastering Workplace Mediation to Resolve Employee Conflicts

Decision makers, managers, and others in charge in the workplace have to handle conflicts on a daily basis as an inherent part of their jobs. Sometimes those conflicts are handled well, but more often than not they aren’t. Yet jobs today are too dependent on critical communications and effective interactions to allow conflict to flourish and take over. Additionally, employees today expect their leaders to have an adequate level of skill-handling conflicts. So it’s crucial that problem solvers in your workplace learn a system that both they and their employees can rely on to help them solve conflicts.

When conflicts are ignored or mishandled, departments and groups quickly become akin to large and unruly kindergartens, complete with kindergarten type behaviors. Group dynamics change almost daily in today’s workplaces and every time you add another person to a group, you add another set of problems and perceptions. When conflicts are not handled or are mishandled, employees can quickly lose respect for their leaders, strong (often dysfunctional employees) take over, people learn to fend for themselves in some very strange ways, and some high performers just leave.

• A step-by-step template to mediate conflicts
• Language and talking points to help you mediate
• Keeping control of your mediations while encouraging open discussion
• How to encourage the conflict participants to come to their own solutions
• Learning the difference between systemic conflict and personality conflict and why its vitally important to know the difference
• 5 different ways to handle a conflict and an easy way to determine which way is the best

Moderator:
Teri Morning, PHR
Director of Organizational Development and Training
HR Consulting

Teri Morning, MS, MBA, SPHR has over 15 years of organizational development experience in a variety of professional fields.

She is the President of her own consulting and training firm and specializes in Compensation, Performance Management and Employee Complaints and Investigations. In that capacity she has enjoyed traveling the country extensively, meeting and training employees from all types of businesses.

In addition to a MBA, Teri also has a Master’s degree in Human Resource Development with a specialization in Conflict Management. She was certified by the State of Indiana in mediation skills, is qualified as a Myers-Briggs practitioner and holds the SHRM certification of a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR).

Teri is a national member of ASTD, SHRM and WorldatWork.