Impartial and professional investigation and mediation services

Employee grievances can often be time consuming, troublesome and frequently fail to reach satisfactory resolutions if poorly managed. Worse still, they may leave a situation unresolved, that disruption can grow and can lead to the departure of an employee or employees This is often at a significant cost to the organisation, with direct and indirect costs mounting up. 

A situation can occur when it is difficult to clarify what exactly happened. It is all often too easy to make assumptions and misunderstand events. From experience such situations are rarely explicit and well defined. And when managers are also witnesses it is even trickier to be impartial.

We at Cinnamon HR offer a bespoke workplace mediation services to help you and your team work together to address disputes in the beginning, rather than following a traditional lengthy grievance procedures. Or to follow a tried and tested investigatory process in a professional and impartial way.

Our TCM Accredited Mediators work through the difficult topics so that both parties feel listened to. The outcome is a thorough documented investigation and an action plan for both parties involved.

To find out more about the TCM Group accreditation www.thetcmgroup.com

Mediation is an informal process for dispute resolution, essentially through a series of facilitated discussions with a view to collaborative problem solving.

Mediation is:

• Voluntary; the participants must be willing to participate in the process for it to be effective.
• Informal; mediation is not part of a formal policy or process however is documented.
• Confidential; all parties, including the Mediator, will be required to agree that the conversations within the mediation process will remain strictly confidential.
• Impartial; the purpose of the Mediator is to remain neutral and provide support as required for both parties equally.
• Collaborative; the agreed action plan is owned by the participants on ways to move forward.

The Mediator will facilitate and lead the discussions, encouraging participants to explore the issues at hand and work towards a shared agreement on ways forward. 

Typically, mediation sessions normally take between 6 – 8 hours with the aim of 'clearing the air' individually and then progressing together with an action plan and shared agreement moving forward.

Our tried and tested method is very popular with our clients as we work very closely with both parties involved remaining totally impartial. We offer a service in which both parties have an opportunity to explore the situation with the Mediator and write an impact statement. We ensure that both parties are getting an equal amount of air time to raise their individual issues both privately with the Mediator and collectively with the other individual. 

Both parties take turns to read their individual impact statements to each other which initiates facilitated discussions about how the situation made each individual feel and how they would like to move forward. We find the impact statement really helps both individuals as often people may be unaware of the impact of their actions on someone else and this helps the individual ‘get it off their chest’. This is often the case when people have worked together for a while and the final straw can often be something very trivial that triggers the need to address the working relationship as a whole.

If you have a case that you would like some professional and impartial support with, we would love to help you.

Why not contact us so we can chat to see how we help is a professional, confidential and empathetic way hello@cinnamonhr.co.uk