Mediation: the importance of doing it right!
In a recent survey by ACAS, 33% of Britain’s workplaces do not have staff with the necessary mediation skills to resolve a workplace conflict, rising to 40% among SMEs.
This is against a backdrop of a rise in workplace conflict. Previous research by ACAS found that 44% of workers had experienced some form of workplace conflict or dispute in the 12 months leading up to November 2025. Of those interviewed, 57% stated that conflict at work had contributed to higher levels of stress, anxiety and, with 49% reporting a drop in motivation or commitment following disputes.
These figures present a compelling case for employers to think carefully about whether they can offer effective mediation. We have spoken to a lot of clients and done several investigations where a badly done ‘mediation’ has only exacerbated a workplace conflict. How does that happen?
What does mediation look like?
With two qualified, experienced mediators in the Narrow Quay HR team, we look at their approach mediations to understand more about how to get it right, and importantly what can go wrong.
The first step we take is to explain the five mediation principles to all parties – we are impartial, non-judgmental (which means that we don’t decide who is ‘right’), it’s self-determined (which means that any agreements are arrived at by the participants and won’t be suggested by the mediator), it’s voluntary and it’s confidential.
We meet each participant individually in the morning for confidential meetings where we explore what has brought them to mediation. We then reframe what they are telling us and ask them to focus on what a positive outcome looks like from their perspective. Quite often when we first meet participants they will say words to the effect of ‘X always does this’ and we ask them what they’d like to say to the other person about what could be done differently. We conduct two of these confidential individual meetings with each participant in the morning and only then, are they ready to meet the other person in the joint session in the afternoon. The reason for the success of mediations is the work done in those morning sessions. We are very proud that we achieve over 90% success rate in that we reach an agreement at the end of the joint session.
How does it go wrong?
In our experience, when managers who have not been properly trained in facilitating mediations, carry out ‘mediations’, they often skip the individual sessions entirely and just put the two employees who are in conflict together and tell them to ‘sort it out’ (or words to that effect!). What often happens next is the manager becomes heavily involved, issuing instructions or making suggestions, none of which aligns with how genuine mediations should be done. Without the reframing and questioning that happens in the individual sessions, employees turn up to the joint session in an adversarial frame of mind. The unsurprising result is that the conflict can sometimes be made a whole lot worse. A further downside is that the employees involved will then have a very negative view of mediation and so it can then be very difficult to encourage them to volunteer for a mediation session done properly.
What’s the takeaway?
There should always be space for informal management of a workplace situation, but when relationships break down or conflicts have arisen between employees, formal mediation, delivered by trained managers or external mediators, could provide a timely and effective solution. It’s an important process and in our experience, when it is done well, it can have a transformative, positive effect on working relationships and team dynamics.
