A Grievance Free Zone

  Oh wouldn’t it be lovely? We have been talking this week about how wonderful it would be to work in an organisation where there is no need for such thing as a Grievance Procedure.

Imagine a place where there is no need, ever, to take the draining, painful and awkward path   which arises when someone says the words “I’m taking out a grievance”?

Because we know in the vast majority of cases, Grievances Just Don’t Work. In more than 95% of cases they don’t end up resolving the conflict they were meant to resolve, and people end up in more distress than they were beforehand, or stuck in a stalemate.

So imagine a workplace where everyone feels skilled and confident enough to iron out issues while they are small, people talk about things as they happen, resolve them and then move on – travelling light.

A place where things that block progress get discovered early and sorted - rather than a small piece of irritating grit picking up speed, mud and gravitas as it bowls along its way.

Where mediation is the scaled up version of dealing with small issues, and where even that process holds each party in a safe space, free to work on the similarities between each other rather than the differences.

Worth working towards – altogether now – wouldn’t it be luvverly!