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Mediation – More than Flavour of the Month?

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So mediation makes it to the front cover of People Management.

Workplace mediation looks like it could be one of the big growth areas for 2009.

With the potential to significantly enhance organisational culture and to reduce the use of formal workplace grievance and disciplinary procedures and industrial tribunals workplace mediation might both add value and reduce costs – definitely a winning combination!

And we still have a few places left on our Introduction to Workplace Mediation Workshop to be held in partnership with Leeds College of Music on December 1st.

You can find out more about the workshop here or book your place online here.

Away From Here

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I’m so sick, sick, sick and tired
Of working just to be retired
I don’t want to get that far
I don’t want your company car
Promotions ain’t my thing
Name badges are not interesting
It’s much easier for me see
To stay at home with Richard and Judy

Awayaway oh oh oh away from here…
Awayaway oh oh oh away from here
Awayaway oh oh oh away from here
Awayaway oh oh oh away from here

I’m fed up of early mornings
Wake up calls are getting boring round here
Feet dragging on the pavement
The same people with the same arrangement
Irony can be quite funny
You making other people money
My working day has just begun
its not exactly what i would call fun

I want to wake up in the afternoon
With daytime TV and my favourite tune
Cos it is much easier for me see
To stay at home with Richard and Judy

Awayaway oh oh oh away from here…..
Away away away away from

Saturday is your only highlight
When you go out and live the highlife
meeting up with other people
your interaction with the weak and feeble
Atleast when all is said and done
You wouldn’t be the only one
To be a slave to the modern wage
Your crappy weekend is your only escape

I want to wake up in the afternoon
With daytime TV and my favourite tune
Cos it is much easier for me
To stay at home with Richard and Judy

The Time To Manage

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Still the biggest barrier I find to helping clients to implement best practice approaches to people management is that ‘we do not have the time’.

‘But Mike I have 4 people in my team – are you really saying that I need to find 2 hours a week to invest in their 121s?  Don’t you understand how busy I am?’

It is a bit like a motorist saying ‘I haven’t got time to check the oil and the water and to fill up the petrol tank – because my car keeps breaking down’.

Except that the latter is statement is clearly ridiculous – while the former often passes for management wisdom!

When we choose not to invest time in managing staff what are we really saying?

‘I can create more value by spending my time elsewhere’ – this may be true but managers are paid to create a return on investment by managing people;

‘If I invest time in my people I may not get a good enough return on that investment’– this may be true but then you are not a competent manager;

‘if I spend time on managing people I will be operating outside the cultural norms of my organisation’ – this may be true but then I question the long term future of your organisation.  Unless we can harness the intelligence, passion, creativity, drive and energy of all our employees then we are, AT BEST, likely to achieve mediocrity.

Often what managers are really saying is that they actually quite like the adrenaline, energy and status that they get as a mole whacker, a problem solver, a crisis crusader.