Conflict at Work? Workplace Mediation Could Save Your Organisation Thousands

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Surprising statistics in a recent ACAS report estimated that workplace conflict cost organisations £2.85 billion in 2021. Workplace mediation is becoming increasingly popular as a more efficient, cost-effective alternative to formal legal proceedings.

The Cost of Workplace Conflict

The ACAS report ‘Estimating the costs of workplace conflict’ was published in May 2021. The analysis was provided by Professor Richard Suandry of the University of Sheffield Management School and Professor Peter Urwin of the Centre for Employment Research, University of Westminster. 

The headline statistics were a wake-up call. 

  • The cost of conflict to organisations was estimated at £2.85 billion, averaging out across employees this equates to more than £1,000 each. 
  • Close to 10 million people experienced conflict at work – of those over half suffered stress, anxiety and depression as a result.
  • Just under 900,000 took time off work – nearly half a million resigned and more than 300,000 employees were dismissed.

This analysis was based on 2018-19, impacted by #MeToo and BLM, but pre-COVID, which has further changed the landscape of work and employee expectations, as socio-political aspects of society that impact the workplace. It is anticipated that the cost of living crisis and summer of discontent will also impact more localised conflict.

Workplace Mediation Is Restorative and Cost-Effective

There is a growing demand for a restorative justice approach. This is where workplace mediation is most useful – as an informal and early intervention, with a no blame and win-win approach and ideally before the conflict becomes too entrenched and toxic. 

The role of the mediator in workplace mediation is to provide confidential, impartial and non-judgemental support to all parties. The mediator will foster a safe and constructive environment with open and honest dialogue to explore issues, with an aim to encourage participants to shift away from their adopted positions. The mediator will not direct or provide solutions – they come from the participants themselves, and own the outcomes.

How Does Mediation Work?

Workplace mediation usually takes place over a day, with some pre-planning and information for the participants, so they know what to expect. The individuals that take part must do so willingly, otherwise mediation will not work. 

The individuals involved are helped to articulate what the issue is, and to be heard (each individual has uninterrupted time when they are brought together). It is an opportunity to explore feelings and needs, to share hurt, which is rare in the workplace. Each participant is heard. Everyone engages equitably. 

The mediator will help all parties to generate and evaluate opportunities for future working. An agreement reached at the end can be useful, often just having the facilitated conversation can be enough to become unstuck and gain some movement and clarity.

Mediation can be used as an early intervention and an alternative to formal processes. It can be used part way through a formal process that will be paused, it can also be an outcome from a formal process It should not be used where there is a large imbalance of power, for bullying and harassment cases or where a formal disciplinary or grievance process is required.

Not all conflict is bad, conflict can be creative and help find solutions.

Narrow Quay HR offer a workplace mediation service. Our team of accredited mediators will be expanding in the autumn.  We offer an initial free of charge meeting to explore if mediation would be helpful.

For more information or support, please get in touch with Sarah Carrington in our team today on 07918 451 453.

The Future is Hybrid

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Hybrid working seems to be the new normal. With a quarter of workers now choosing to work remotely and from the office, we take a look at how you can best manage your workforce and employee expectations. 

Working Remotely and In the Office

Hybrid working allows your employees to split their time between working remotely and from the office. For most, this means working from home, but this could also mean working from a shared space, or even the local coffee shop! It doesn’t just stop there… more and more businesses are adopting a much more flexible way of working generally, including a shorter working week, compressed hours or term-time only working. There’s lots of possibilities.

What Are the Advantages?

Hybrid working not only offers more flexibility, but also supports a better work life balance, and contributes to positive mental health and wellbeing. Research has also shown that embracing flexible working pattern increases productivity. It can even help reduce overheads by saving on office space!

What’s the Difference Between Hybrid Working and Flexible Working?

There is no legal requirement to adopt a hybrid working model. It’s up to the employer to develop a practice that works best for the business and staff. There is also no requirement to have a hybrid working policy in place (although we would always recommend this as best practice).

There is an obligation on an employer to consider a request for flexible working if the employee has the necessary qualifying service of 26 weeks. Employees must provide a reason for their request, and give due consideration as to how this might impact your business.

Employers are under a duty to meet with the employee and properly consider the request, needing a good business reason to refuse. A flexible working request can include a request to make a temporary or permanent change to working patterns or location. If the employee isn’t happy with the outcome, they have a legal right to appeal, and must be taken through the appropriate appeal process.  

The Government are now also considering, whether the 26 week working requirement should be abolished, and this should in fact, become a day one right. Given the change in working culture, this is not surprising, but no decisions have been made yet.   

We have set out below some practical considerations to think about when adopting a hybrid working model, and how best to manage this.

Hybrid Working Policy

Having a policy in place can be a useful management tool and help enforce those necessary boundaries. This can be used to identify when and how often attendance at the office is expected, what is expected from remote workers (including communication guidance), and information about the use of equipment or IT security. You can also set out that all important health and safety information.

Effective Communication

Working remotely can often feel isolating, and when things are busy, those employees can sometimes be forgotten. This in turn can impact performance and productivity. Being clear about your expectations from the outset, and ensuring you plan ahead will help to manage this, and keep your employees on track.

This could include an online open door policy, diarising regular one to ones, and holding weekly team meetings by video call. Either way, ensure regular face to face contact is made, so those working remotely do not feel excluded, and that communication is effective.

Working Environment

Having a safe and comfortable working environment is essential to productivity. Think about whether those employees working from home have access to a suitable space to work, and to the equipment they need. Is there anything you need to provide, or any safety checks to be carried out? Is there a requirement for reasonable adjustments?

Managing Your Employees

It’s important to manage staff working remotely, as you normally would if they were in the office full time. Ensure staff have the same opportunities as those in the workplace, and that training and development needs are still being met. This could even include training for line managers on how to effectively manage those who have adopted hybrid working.

Finally, you may wish to consider the approach taken in Tokyo, where a whole new way of working has been adopted for those finding it hard to find their focus and meet deadlines!

For more specialist support with how best to manage hybrid working, please contact Kirsty Hunt in our team on 07384813077.

Rising Prices and Risk of Recession – How Can You Be Prepared?

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The Bank of England’s warning of a ‘sharp economic slowdown’ has sparked further fears that the UK could be plunged into recession.

The Government’s announcement of a review into how it can best support a thriving future UK labour market is welcome news, but with the two stage review taking place over spring and summer, will that support come quick enough?

As the UK continues to see a contraction across all sectors of the economy, we consider what steps employers should take regarding its staffing, to deal with the impact of a downturn.

Review Future Plans

It is important to look ahead to commitments you’ve made to establish if they are critical, and if they are, whether or not they can be deferred until you have some certainty.

For your employees this might mean reviewing training activities to ensure future relevance, and staffing plans, considering whether a recruitment freeze is an option.

Employers do need to ensure though that they consider how they will not only weather a recession but also respond in the aftermath – halting all training and recruitment may mean you’re not skilled and fully resourced to respond to future challenges.

Talk to Your Employees

It’s a balancing act for employers to ensure they keep employees appropriately updated on business plans, but without creating alarm and seeing your key staff jump ship. Key to this is relevant and meaningful communication.

You may not have all the answers or any fully formed plans, but communicating that it is on your radar and that you will share information when you can will help to gain trust and provide reassurance. It may encourage employees to review and consider their personal circumstances and avoid over committing. It can also provide clarity if you do decide to take steps such as putting training or recruitment on hold, avoiding your staff feeling even more frustrated and concerned. 

Follow a Fair Process

In the unfortunate event that redundancies are necessary, ensure that you follow a fair process to facilitate genuine and meaningful consultation that is sensitive and respectful to those affected. If you’ve communicated about your business plans appropriately, it should help staff to see this response is less of a knee-jerk reaction.

You need to prepare in order to run a process smoothly – use the time now to get clarity on your staffing numbers and commitments, making sure to consider all staff who may need to be involved such as fixed term contractors and temporary staff. 

For specialist HR support with any of these issues, please contact Sue Meehan Boyes in our team on 07384 468797.

More Companies Offer Mental Health Day Holidays for Employees

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In light of the challenges of the pandemic and as part of an ongoing commitment to employee wellbeing, Thomson Reuters has introduced two annual company mental health day holidays, commencing in 2022.

On those days, Thomson Reuters encourages employees to ‘use the time off with intention and do something that gives the day meaning to them’.

This poses a question for organisations who share this increased focus on employee wellbeing. Are they also willing to implement such policies?

Why Invest in Employee Wellbeing?

There is now a much broader understanding and application of holistic health and wellbeing approaches in many workplaces. It is also clear that some companies are not yet embracing the health and wellbeing agenda to full effect.

Investing in employee wellbeing can lead to increased resilience, better employee engagement, reduced sickness absence and higher performance and productivity. To gain real benefit, employee wellbeing priorities must be integrated throughout an organisation, embedded in its culture, leadership and people management.

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Rising Mental Health Concerns

There has been a rise in the number of reported mental health issues over the past 10 years and it’s well recognised that in many cases the main risks to people’s health at work are psychological. This has led to a growing recognition of the need for employee wellbeing practices to address to psychological, as well as physical, aspects of health and wellbeing.

CIPD’s 2022 Health and Wellbeing at Work survey report show that organisations’ wellbeing activity is increasingly focused on mental health, with most organisations taking steps to support mental health and address workplace stress.

The survey also found evidence of a range of unhealthy working practices such as ‘presenteeism’ (people working when unwell), with 81% of organisations reporting presenteeism among people working from home and 65% in a physical workplace. Two thirds (67%) have also observed some form of ‘leavism’, such as using holiday entitlement when unwell or to work, over the past 12 months.

Looking Beyond the Statistics

There is still a lot of work to be done to ensure all workplaces are giving this topic the time and attention it deserves. Employers need to look beyond absence statistics to understand the underlying factors, such as unmanageable workloads, that are driving unhealthy working practices and influencing people’s wellbeing.

Your organisation may wish to support its wellbeing agenda through new initiatives such as additional wellbeing days for its employees, to demonstrate this driving focus on supporting them through the ever-evolving challenge of balancing work and life pressures.

For specialist support with these issues or for advice in implementing any new initiatives, please get in touch with Sarah Martin in our team on 07799 136 091.

Accredited Mediator Sarah Joins Narrow Quay HR, Expanding the Breadth of Support the Consultancy Can Offer Clients

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Sarah Carrington has worked extensively as the senior HR professional for a range of organisations across the public, charitable and private sectors, including the NHS, Social Care and most recently the cultural sector.

Her impressive CV includes leading on numerous transformation change programmes, managing complex employee relations issues, negotiating and implementing new systems and terms and conditions of employment including pay and reward and job evaluation initiatives plus implementing strategic learning and development programmes.

Sarah is also a fellow of the CIPD, an accredited Mediator, a CIPD Enterprise Advisor and mentor, a school governor for a pupil referral unit, and a Mental Health First Aider.

Sarah’s wealth of knowledge and expertise makes her a great addition to the expanding Narrow Quay HR Team. This skillset is exemplified by the work she has undertaken on a recent project reviewing the leadership structure and competencies for a critical team within a national cultural organisation, including setting up strategies and mechanisms to resource plan and manage.

Sarah commented on her appointment:

“I am delighted to join Narrow Quay HR, working with such a supportive and friendly team of professionals (towards colleagues and clients alike) with an extensive and inspiring range of individual and collective experience and expertise. The team’s approach is wholly client-focussed, with a genuine ambition and care for finding workable and successful outcomes that are tailored to meet specific needs. No ask to the team appears too small (or large) from our clients, they are all important. I look forward to helping with the expansion of services the team can offer, including using mediation as a tool to resolving workplace conflict.”

Narrow Quay HR Directors Caitlin Anniss and Sarah Martin commented:

“We are absolutely thrilled Sarah has joined us. Her deep understanding of HR best practice coupled with her practical strategic mindset and outcome focussed approach will be invaluable to our clients. Not only is she a hugely skilled and experienced HR Practitioner, she is also a qualified Mediator. Mediation is such an effective means of dispute resolution and is a great fit with the services currently offered by Narrow Quay HR.  We are hugely excited to develop this area of our business in conjunction with Sarah.”

Culture Reviews – What Are Your Staff Members Really Thinking?

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Are you confident that you know how your staff are feeling at work? Have you noticed tensions in the staffroom or at meetings, but no one suggests anything is amiss?

Perhaps you already do an employee engagement survey but don’t feel this is giving enough relevant details. Or perhaps you are aware that there is a particular team which is not functioning well and you can’t quite establish why that is.

There can be a variety of reasons why it can be hard to get to the heart of what is happening in situations such as this – finding time in a busy schedule, using the right tools to gather in that feedback. Sometimes there is a reluctance from staff to engage on sensitive issues or to speak about colleagues. If left unchecked these tensions may well develop into significant issues for you. Undertaking a traditional workplace investigation to look into these matters might not be the right tool, as the concerns may not focus on one individual, may come too late, may not be practicable, or might not really get to the bottom of the issue.

What Does a Culture Review Involve?

This is where a culture review can really help. It can take a number of forms – online surveys directed at the particular issue, focus groups or one-to-one interviews. Often a culture review will involve a mixture of these methods to really gain a detailed understanding of what is going on.

What Data Can a Culture Review Gather?

At Narrow Quay HR we have a lot of experience in running a variety of culture reviews – looking at general morale across the staff community, dysfunctional teams, character clashes and conflicts. We have also conducted reviews to check in on staff confidence and understanding of key policies such as safeguarding. We know that staff respond really well to a third-party undertaking this type of review – it reassures them of confidentiality (or, potentially, even anonymity), enables them to talk more freely than they would to colleagues and/or offer constructive feedback where they might not otherwise feel able to voice their thoughts, and demonstrates the school’s commitment to finding a resolution.

How Narrow Quay HR Can Aid Your Culture Review

We work with you to develop the right medium for gathering the feedback you need, and through our analysis will draw together the key themes with recommendations for action. We analyse the data we collate and provide you with a report setting out themes and findings, and our recommended next steps. We can meet with you to discuss our findings and any appropriate follow up. We can support you with actions that may flow from the review, which may be more formal investigations into particular incidents or mediation where you have unresolved conflicts.

Narrow Quay HR is a subsidiary of VWV and our team of HR consultants are a mix of former lawyers who now specialise in HR and highly experienced HR professionals, giving you solid legal grounding and practical expertise.

If you would like to talk to us about your individual HR needs, please contact Sue Meehan Boyes in our team on 07384 468797.

Why Staff Training Is Often More Effective than Behavioural Policies

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In our many investigations into misconduct and harassment allegations, a regular issue is when a colleague makes comments about another colleague’s appearance. 

Those remarks are often intended to be complimentary but can make the recipient of those remarks to feel ‘othered’.

This is a word that we are increasingly seeing in our interviews and it raises an interesting point.

Compliment or Criticism?

If a male manager comments regularly on how a female colleagues is dressed, their hair, or whether they have lost weight, that manager may well say that they intended it to be received as a positive thing.

However, if the manager doesn’t also comment on any male colleagues’ appearance then there is real risk that the female recipients of his comments could feel singled out, embarrassed or offended, particularly if the comments are made in front of a group of other people.

We recently did an investigation where something similar to the above happened. Whilst the comment in question was intended to be a compliment, in the mind of the recipient it merely served to highlight how something about her appearance was different to all of the other colleagues present.

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What Are the Limitations of Behavioural Policies?

These examples show the limits of policies, as it is very difficult to draft a policy that covers every eventuality. Who would have thought for instance that you would need to specifically deal with looking at pornography whilst sat in the House of Commons?

If you do try to cover every possible eventuality in a policy then you will soon find that the policy will become very long and unwieldy and it will probably put a lot of employees off from reading it.  

Experience also says that as soon as you finish a policy like that and press print or post it on your intranet, then you’ll want to add to it – it will never stop growing.

What’s a Better Approach?

In a word: training. You should train your staff on the approach you want them to take, giving them examples of the sort of conduct mentioned above. You should then ask them to reflect on how it would make them feel if a colleague commented just on their appearance on a regular basis.

We tend to find that taking that approach and getting the delegates to consider the impact of certain behaviours can result in longer lasting changes in behaviours. Those changes will be much more effective than simply handing them a lengthy policy and asking them to read and digest it.

Narrow Quay HR delivers training on these types of issues. For further information about our training, please contact Simon Martin in our team on 07384 813 076 to find out more.

Storing COVID Vaccination Data – What’s the Latest Guidance?

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If you are responsible for GDPR matters in your workplace then you should take heed of recent guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) regarding the storage of COVID vaccination data.

The ICO, which is the UK’s information body set up to uphold information rights, has published guidance called ‘Data protection and Coronavirus-19 – relaxation of government measures‘. This is to help organisations and employers to comply with their data protection obligations following the Government’s relaxation of the rules relating to COVID-19.

Sharing Vaccination Data

Some employers may have checked people’s COVID-19 vaccination status historically. The ICO has outlined in this recent guidance some key things organisations need to consider around the use of this type of personal information.

Why Hold Vaccination information?

Employers may wish to seek voluntary proof of vaccination:

  • to track staff vaccination levels within the workforce and assess the risk of transmission
  • to ascertain an employee’s eligibility under any vaccination incentive scheme

If an employer has vaccination data it may help them with internal risk assessments and planning from an operational viewpoint.

What Is Your Purpose for Storing Information?

Now is the time to review your current practices in respect of collecting and storing this type of data. Employers now need to understand from a data protection viewpoint, what information they can request and record about their employees’ vaccination status.

An employer should consider carefully whether capturing this information can be justified, given the current position taken by the Government. Employees’ health information falls into the category of special personal data so employers must identify a lawful reason to request and process this data under data protection legislation.

The ICO guidance states that if employers collect vaccine information they must be clear what they are trying to achieve by doing so and demonstrate how it helps them achieve it. The use of data must be fair, relevant and necessary for a specific purpose.

There must also be a compelling reason for collecting this information and ‘just in case’ will not be good enough. The intention of using and processing this vaccination data must also be transparent from the employer and should not provide any risk to the employee or any detrimental impact to them.

How Long Should an Employer Retain Vaccination Data?

If you have vaccination data for your employees you should review it and ensure that it is still reasonable, fair and appropriate for you to retain this data going forward. You should safely dispose of this data if it is no longer relevant or required. If you need to store vaccination data you should do so for only as long as is necessary and review regularly.  

For specialist support on managing your employee vaccination data, please contact Helen Couchman in our team on 07799 901 669.

Sexual Harassment is a Workplace Issue – How Can You Promote Zero Tolerance?

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CIPD research in 2020 found that 4% of employees reported being sexually harassed within the last three years, with younger women most likely to be impacted.

What Is Sexual Harassment?

Harassment is defined in the Equality Act 2010 as ‘unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic, which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual.’

Sexual harassment is unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature. This could include inappropriate touching, sexual jokes, sending emails or messages of a sexual nature or displaying pornographic material.

What Are the Duties of Employers?

Employers have a duty to protect their workers and can be held liable for acts of sexual harassment in the workplace if it is found that they have not taken reasonable steps to prevent it.

 The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) have produced a helpful guide for employers on preventing sexual harassment at work, and has other helpful information on their website for employers.

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Action Plan for Employers

In late April, the EHRC produced an action plan and checklist for employers in the UK working in the hospitality sector, to help ensure that staff are protected from sexual harassment at work.

This follows a report that more than 50% of women and two thirds of LBGT people reported sexual harassment in the sector. Although the guide has been developed with the hospitality sector in mind, it can be adapted to suit different workplaces and sectors.

The action plan includes helpful templates which can be used by employers, including:

  • a practical checklist to support employers considering issues such as how to communicate a culture of zero tolerance to staff, how to change the working environment and how to assess working practices – the checklist can be adapted to suit different workplaces
  • an action plan to record what action is needed in a workplace
  • monitoring logs to record action taken

How Can You Prevent Sexual Harassment in Your Workplace?

  • Review your training provided to managers and staff on sexual harassment in the workplace. Have you provided any? How recently? Training is a good opportunity to communicate the culture of the workplace and set the standards you expect and to help equip managers to deal with concerns raised with them by employees.
  • Ensure your policies and procedures are up-to-date.
  • Promote a zero tolerance culture.
  • Consider how complaints are dealt with in your organisation and ensure that this is effective and that staff feel confident coming forwards.
  • Monitor complaints that arise for any trends and follow up.

Narrrow Quay HR can work with you to put into action the points set out above and work with your organisation to address sexual harassment. Please contact Caitlin Anniss in our team on 07909 683938.