Neutral Third Party Mediation

Mediation Part III

Mediation Neutral

Mediation

The author of this report is writing a continuing series on mediation and what makes up a typical mediation session as well as what made up an actual mediation that the author of this report and response was involved with. The situation occurred at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital. Specifically, the author of this report will focus on what the overarching difference was, who the parties or sides were for the conflict, who the neutral side was in the conversation, how that neutral party was chosen, why a neutral third party was required and how that person facilitated discussions that led to an acceptable outcome. The author will explain what would have happened had the author been the neutral side in the discussion. While having a neutral party is not necessary to get a resolution to a problem with two dichotomous sides, it is certainly a helpful thing to have at the ready should it be advantageous to have a neutral party.

Neutral Parties

The mediation in question that the author will speak of was basically a union situation where employees were staunchly dissatisfied about something going on and the employer thought that the status quo was alright and that perhaps the overall situation was a creation or at least an exaggeration. An initial meeting was held between the two sides and the author of this report was sort of the voice of the employee side. Some progress was made but there was a little bit of foot-dragging and stalling (at least it seemed) when it came to lasting solutions that would benefit both sides. Given that, the use of a non-involved manager with years of experience was brought in to sort of mediate what was going on. In short, the person was a mediator. The third party did not have the authority to order or mandate anything but both sides loosely agreed to let a third party take a look at things and decide for themselves so as to perhaps be the swaying vote for everyone involved. As noted in the prior reports, the root issue at hand is that the employees in a certain department were seemingly short-staffed while the management thought the current staffing levels were fine. Further, the managers thought that the existing employees were not performing as optimally as they could or should and that doing so might lead to a resolution to the problems in play. The employees viscerally and passionately countered that this was absolutely not the case and that any losses in performance and efficiency were due to burnout and hurt feelings from not being supported and being given the benefit of the doubt absent evidence of clear malfeasance or ill intent (Sarchar, 2015; ADR, 2015).

As noted above, the neutral party was a long-tenured manager in another department that was very experienced in the firm but not directly involved in the issues at hand. The person was chosen because it was agreed that the person had a vested interest in a resolution being found but there was not a bias as to who should prevail and why as the person was not a member of the part of the organization in question. Rather than person worked for another part of the business. As such, it was agreed that the person was knowledgeable enough to make a decision but would not be swayed by personal or departmental allegiances. Some in the employee group questioned whether this was indeed the case but the author of this report vouched for him because he had been seen to be pragmatic and unbiased din the past even when it was not the easiest or manager-friendly thing to say at the time (Sarchar, 2015; ADR, 2015).