A dispute resolution consultant with the Gamey and Gamey Group, Saeed Musah-Khaleepha has urged senior and middle level managers in corporate Ghana to acquire the managerial mediation skills to enable them to effectively prevent or resolve workplace disputes.
By using such skills to intervene in dispute situations that may affect departmental outputs, he said, managers will be helping to enhance inter-employee relations to boost organisational productivity.
In a presentation at a two-day Managerial Mediation Training workshop organized by ADR Daily in collaboration with the Gamey and Gamey Group in Tema, Mr. Musah-Khaleepha noted that acquiring competence in managerial mediation has become critical for middle level managers, including departmental heads, line managers and supervisors who engage directly with workers at the production base.
He explained that learning the core competencies of managerial mediation such as listening skills and the use of appropriate language place senior and mid-level managers in a position to effectively deal with volatile situations at the workplace.
As managers, they often make judgment calls, and have to reconcile with one action over the other, “and in the cause of it some people get slighted, some people get to share a different perspective as to how to achieve the corporate goal and object,” he said, adding that mediation skills help in getting all interests addressed in such situations.
“You cannot be effective in resolving disputes among workers you supervise, when you are not good at listening and not being able to deploy the resources of language to effectively bring parties together to the table to talk to each other and discuss issues in a collaborative effort to resolving differences,” he stressed.
A total of 22 Human Resource Managers, Branch Managers, Supervisors and Cluster Managers from the Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG) and HPW Fresh and Dry, attended the training workshop which afforded participants the opportunity to learn about Appropriate Dispute Resolution (ADR), managerial mediation and how to prevent or resolve workplace conflicts.
The training, which is a product of ADR Daily’s 2020 Mediation Expedition held at the Bunso Eco Park in the Eastern region last December, aimed at promoting the use of managerial mediation to enhance workplace co-existence and organisational productivity.
