How to nip discrimination issues in the bud

Accusations of discrimination can be emotional and sometimes scary to deal with. Normally the person "accused" gets defensive - as can the organisation. So, the complaint is made - then what usually happens? We put everybody through the pain of formal grievances!

... we interview the accuser...

... we interview the accused...

... we interview witnesses...

... we take statements...

... we type them up...

... they amend them...

... we distribute them...

... it all takes several weeks or months (even years!)...

... the grievance "judge" makes a decision...

... the employee is even more unhappy...

... the employee appeals...

... back around the loop we go again...

... usually the same result...

... internal process over...

... the employee is beside themselves, it's so unfair!

By this time everybody is stressed (including the managers and HR holding the grievances) - everyone is feeling worse than they did at the start. The employee takes external advice around constructive dismissal claims, discrimination, whistleblowing and anything else their advisor can think of. Subject data access requests come in, and so on - we all know the story.

Meanwhile, the "accused" starts to compile their own grievance - why should someone be able to accuse them of something so abhorrent? The grievance has proven they didn't discriminate so they want their own back - put them through the stress of all those interrogations. Here we go again...

There really is a much better way...

Please excuse the pun, but it's rarely as black and white or binary as 'yes' or 'no' when it comes to discrimination. It's about personalities, perceptions and behaviours - evidence in grievances doesn't deal with these properly. Neither do employment tribunals, their huge paperwork bundles or cross-examinations.

In this blog I give an example of where proper discussions (via mediation) took away all accusations of discrimination. These discussions wouldn't have needed an external mediator if they'd been nipped in the bud - anybody with a few mediation skills could have helped them to have proper conversations as soon as the issues came to light.

This is why we not only train fully accredited external mediators, we also train HR professionals and line managers in those same skills to be used internally and start to change the culture of their organisations through the art of conversation. The productivity, wellbeing and cultural benefits of being able to talk to people and solve issues informally is huge!

I talk more about both training programmes in this video.