HR Zone

We all know that workplace stress can have long-lasting negative consequences on employees. Long hours, unrealistic demands, and looming layoffs can lead to an increase in workplace conflict and health problems. But these issues are compounded when the workplace itself is a part of the problem. Academic research highlights the importance of the workplace environment on employees’ […]

What could you do to help defuse workplace conflicts? This two-part series outlines the core skills used by trained mediators in a workplace mediation. These skills can be applied on an informal basis, as a means of managing workplace conflict at the earliest stage. Following Consensio’s mediation principles, we assume firstly that your involvement is […]

One of the more surprising items on the British political agenda this year was empathy.  This is largely thanks to Labour leader Ed Miliband, who has cited empathy as one of his core political values and has even recruited the help of empathy expert Professor Simon Baron Cohen to develop his “politics of empathy”.   It […]

Organisations devote huge amounts of money to conflict: in trying to prevent it, and trying to manage it when it does arise.  So it is well worth devoting time to understanding this phenomenon that is conflict. Where does it come from? And why does it arise with such predictable regularity? We can see conflict in terms […]

One year in, Anna Shields, Director of Consensio, looks at how successful a Government-backed mediation scheme has been to date. In June 2012, the Government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) launched and funded a pilot project to increase the use of mediation in the workplace. The long-term aim of this initiative was to shift the culture of […]