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Workplace investment in ADR: at the start rather than down the track of a conflict
Podcasts, powerpoints and/or papers from the presentations are available to LEADR members and
Follow the journey Victoria University took in introducing a staff Ombuds service in the hope of addressing conflict early rather than after it has escalated.
Historically, Victoria University in Melbourne has invited staff to use ADR such as conflict coaching and or mediation when they eventually arrive at the Human Resources Department, either at OHS or Employee Relations. However, by this stage, their outrage is high and their identity has morphed into that of righteous victim. I have started to persuade my workplace to invest differently in its people, given rigorous debate and conflicting views are healthy within a University. The investment is the establishment of a staff Ombuds service. This presentation tells the story of and lessons learned in the journey of influence to initiate the Victoria University Office of the Ombuds. The success or otherwise of this journey will be told at the conference. I will take questions and welcome discussion of the journey’s lessons learned and success or otherwise during the presentation. Podcast: Listen to Margaret talk about this session pre-kon gres (10 mins) >> |
The destination for this project journey is a workplace that has invested in enabling its staff to deal with their conflict as soon as they want to do something about it – before, for example, the workplace has an investigation into a formal complaint from a querulant employee who has become unwell.
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Margaret lives at the beach with her two Jack Russell terriers with whom she mediates bone ownership from time to time. She is spending as much of her winter as possible learning to ski cross country but says she spends more time on the ground trying to get back upright than she does skiing forward.
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Margaret Buchanan
Margaret Buchanan is the Senior Employee Relations Consultant at Victoria University in Melbourne. She holds Juris Doctor, M. Bus (Management), BA, Certificate of Nursing and Grad Dip in IR qualifications. New-ish to the ADR world, Margaret is a trained CINERGY® Conflict Coach.
This project evolved from a Research Paper that Margaret researched and wrote to complete her JD in late 2010 when she wrote a case study on workplace conflict, comparing Victoria University with the University of Auckland. A change on how Victoria University dealt with conflict became obvious at that point.
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