“I hope you get cancer and die,” said a customer to staff in a convenience store. They’d just been told an item was out of stock. This is one of…

HR guru Henry Mintzberg tells the story of how his daughter had once left him a puzzling note about her shoes: “Souls need fixing”. The simple misspelling was a reminder…

Employers should be looking again at the grievance and complaint standards they have in place, making sure they are watertight, and provide the alternative to a slide into conflict and…

When tensions arise at work, the first thing many of us do is avoid it. We imagine that there is a pain-free way through this. Yet, if we avoid conflict…

If you talk about the need for better communications within an organisation, most employees will now think of a screen. Older employees will see a face. With an ageing workforce…

‘Banter’ cases continue to be relatively common at Employment Tribunals. There were 66 in the past year where the defence was that the jokes involved were “friendly banter” and not…

It is common for delegates attending our 6 day ILM Recognised Professional Workplace Mediator training, to arrive thinking it is going to be easier to learn to mediate than it…

Everyone involved with the higher education (HE) sector in England will welcome the arrival of the Office for Students’ (OfS) forthcoming guidelines on dealing with cases of harassment and sexual…

There’s a lot of hot air talked about mediation, so I thought I’d go back to basics and look the Advantages and Disadvantages straight in the eye. Here goes! Advantages Cost…