When things go wrong at work ...

Trouble at work affects morale, causes absenteeism and can drastically limit performance. Workplace conferencing aims to undo the damage, writes VICKI JAYNE.

Examples of bad behaviour in the workplace are not hard to find.

There is the boss who thinks shouting is an effective management technique, the co-worker who splashes sarcasm about like acid, or the gossip who shreds colleagues' reputations like surplus paper.

Left unchecked, such behaviour can cause a lot of damage. It affects morale, leads to increased stress and absenteeism, and can have catastrophic effects on performance, says an Australian specialist in restorative justice.

Margaret Thorsborne, managing director of Transformative Justice Australia, is in New Zealand this week to give training in a technique to restore co-operative relations at work.

This involves bringing the parties together and encouraging an open, honest discussion about how negative workplace behaviour has affected them.

Dealing with what could be several years' accumulation of emotional fallout is, she says, a bit like lancing a boil.

"You have to be careful how you go about it, and there's a lot of clean-up work to do afterwards."

People usually come to the process with intense emotions.

"By the time I get called in to help sort things out, people can be in a pretty bad way. They may be depressed, on medication, highly stressed, because the situation has been years in the making."

It has often reached a point where legal action is in the offing. A worker may be seeking compensation, a teacher facing disciplinary action.

But formal workplace processes are only a partial answer to some problems, says Thorsborne.

"They may provide a procedural avenue for redress, but they don't address the emotional fallout from what's been happening.

"This process gives people a chance to tell their stories, to say what it's been like for them, and what their issues are."

That does not mean allowing an uncontrolled rant. Workplace conferencing, she says, is highly structured, carefully managed - and not for the faint-hearted.

"You have to approach it with a lot of care and concentration. You can have 20 people in the room at the same time, all with their own issues."

Once all parties get a chance to be heard, the process aims to transform conflict into co-operation as staff come together to tackle a problem - becoming "we" instead of "us and them".

The work community then has some sense of responsibility for and ownership of suggested remedies.

Participants find it tough putting their emotions on the line, but the process is fast and efficient, she says.

It leaves people feeling they have had a fair say, and can avoid the necessity for time-consuming and expensive legal processes.

Having proved its worth in Australia, workplace conferencing is now being offered in New Zealand by Fiona Landon, Kate Neate and Annelies Marx.

They are effectively bringing home a process that originated here.

What Australia adapted to the workplace was the family group conference process developed in New Zealand to enable young offenders to be dealt with outside the courts.

Formalised in the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act in 1989, the idea crossed the Tasman in 1992, initially for use with wayward youth.

And family group conferencing took its inspiration from traditional Maori principles of restorative justice, where offenders and victims are brought together in a hui to arrange a community-based solution for damage caused.

All three local facilitators have been part of a four-year, restorative justice pilot programme for adults in Auckland, Waitakere, Hamilton and Dunedin district courts.

The three can work separately or together, focusing on relationships at work, managing high-level conflict and inappropriate behaviour.

The process has four phases. An initial consultation with management identifies key issues, key people and desired outcomes. Pre-conference interviews are conducted with the main protagonists.

Once all issues are out in the open, a strategy for moving forward is agreed to and a simple contract is written up and signed by participants.

A follow-up phase includes a report including recommendations, a meeting with management, and a system for monitoring compliance.

Follow-up is vital, and damage repair often a long-term process, says Thorsborne.

One case involving tensions between school heads of departments had built for 10 years before being brought to a conference.

By then, one staff member had come under departmental investigation and another was feeling so victimised she feared for her safety.

She needed a period of extended sick leave and treatment for depression before being able to return to work. The other protagonist was shifted to a different school.

The process often unearths problems underlying those that prompted initial inquiry.

For example, investigation of one worker's compensation claim for stress focused on a manager's aggressive behaviour.

While confirming that he did need some interpersonal skills training for an over-sharp tongue, it also revealed that the complainant was a malicious gossip who had herself caused an immense amount of emotional damage at work.

Thorsborne has her own recipe for creating an emotional healthy workplace.

First is an atmosphere in which it is okay to talk about feelings.

Second, anyone who is having negative feelings about what is happening needs to be acknowledged and understood.

Third, people need to know how to behave appropriately.

"They have to know there are some behaviours that are not good for relationships - like being aggressive, or gossiping about workmates, or being disorganised," says Thorsborne.

"It's also to do with having structures and processes in place to deal with such issues.

"They function like condoms. If you get them in place, they provide protection from the situations that can lead to serious damage."

Workplace Conferencing

Transformative Justice Australia

* vjayne@iconz.co.nz