Ai Group Workplace Lawyers have boosted their mediation service offering.
Joanna Knoth, Vikki Sultana and Stephen Marriott, all Special Counsel in our North Sydney team, have successfully completed their National Mediation Accreditation training and assessment.
They will now appear as nationally registered and accredited mediators on the NSW Law Society website.
“Mediation is a valuable service that our members have long sought from Ai Group Workplace Lawyers,” Ms Sultana said.
“It can be an excellent tool for employers in resolving interpersonal issues that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to resolve.
“You might find yourself in a situation where you have two people who need to find a way to work together in the future. It might be a manager and one of their direct reports butting heads and not getting along. Neither of them is going to leave, and you don’t want either of them to leave because they are both great at their jobs and are delivering in their roles.
“They just need to find a way to work together. That’s where mediation can help.”
Mediation can also help when:
“Given we are in the midst of the Great Resignation, it’s more pertinent than ever to make sure interpersonal issues within the workplace are being resolved so that good talent can be retained,” Ms Sultana said.
“Understanding what mediation involves — in the technical sense to get the outcome that you are looking for — does require someone with accreditation.”
A typical mediation lasts for half a day, assuming an agreed outcome can be reached.
The mediator first spends time with both participants separately to get background and context about their issues.
“Where you are able to reach an agreed outcome, you then look at documenting that in some way,” Ms Sultana said.
“There are various levels of formality that we can adopt: it could be as simple as the parties writing down the points they have agreed upon in a letter and then signing it or it could involve more formal terms of settlement, such as heads of agreement or a deed.
“More complex matters will require longer mediation and being a willing participant in the process is critical; that’s something we determine very early on in the piece.
“Successful mediation can lead to people having better professional working relationships which benefits them – and the business.”
Please contact Ai Group Workplace Lawyers on 1300 55 66 77 for your mediation needs.
Wendy Larter is Communications Manager at the Australian Industry Group. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a reporter, features writer, contributor and sub-editor for newspapers and magazines including The Courier-Mail in Brisbane and Metro, the News of the World, The Times and Elle in the UK.
