Do you have a Dispute Resolution Hotline?
In June 2018, Respectful Workplaces and Peel HR partnered with Dr Carlo Caponecchia, from UNSW to present a paper at the International Conference on Workplace Bullying and Harassment in Bordeaux, titled Learning from Interventions: features of workplace bullying investigations and mediations.
The research highlighted that the majority of investigations are undertaken with no prior early intervention strategies, with investigations themselves being the first line of intervention. Why is this so? Do organisations panic when they hear the terms ‘bullying’ or ‘harassment’? Or do they step away from conflict because they don’t think any informal intervention strategies will work? As Dispute Resolution specialists we have said for a while now that we need earlier intervention into conflict. But what does that really mean?
Early intervention means trying to catch a conflict or a conflictual person as early as possible and dealing with it as close to the source as possible and as informally as possible. At Respectful Workplaces we have been offering our clients over the years a host of early intervention strategies; from training, to team collaboration workshops, facilitations, mediations and workplace assessments. Most recently we have launched our successful Turnaround Coaching program using The Birkman Method (TBM), where we dig deep into the root cause of an employee’s counterproductive behaviours and through the use of the TBM, we open up a conversation with the employee to access deeper levels of self-awareness and an understanding of their reactive behaviours.
We know that conflict can be both debilitating and damaging for both organisations and the individuals alike. We also know that the most effective way to achieve sustainable productive and harmonious working relationships when unhealthy conflict is emerging, is to intervene early at the source with the people directly involved. Continuing our passion for early intervention and our clients with tools in their armoury to build respectful and collaborative workplaces, we have launched in 2019, the Dispute Resolution (DR) Hotline.
The DR Hotline is a key intervention strategy in the resolution of conflict. It provides immediate response to the caller, both leaders and employees, supporting them to address conflict themselves. The DR Hotline works similar to an EAP service, in that it is offered on a subscription and confidential basis, manned by DR Specialists who triage the call with the person concerned, focusing on deescalating strategies or the identification and adoption of the most appropriate dispute resolution pathway. PEEL
HR provides our partner clients with monthly confidential reporting and hot spot identification allowing them to consider additional internal supports.
To talk more with us about how you can get on board with this new initiative, phone us on 1300 665 144 or send us a message using the form at the top of this page.