Three new Certified Mediators in Northern Ireland

Nov. 15, 2011 - PRLog -- Legal-Island have become well-known for not only the high quality training and development they deliver to HR professionals and employment lawyers throughout Ireland, but for staff development too. Recently, three of Legal-Island staff underwent an intensive eight day, FETAC Level 6 and Mediators Institute of Ireland approved programme to become Accredited Mediators.

Barry Phillips - CEO, Scott Alexander - Head of Training and Development, and Kerry Taggart - Northern Ireland Conference Manager are now offering their services as mediators to those in need. They’ve even set up a webpage highlighting their new service offering: http://legal-island.com/employment-law/mediator-northern-ireland/

Legal-Island CEO, Barry Phillips, said “As a company, Legal-Island have believed for a long time that the solution to the large amounts of litigation (which regularly bubble out of the workplace destined for the Industrial Tribunal) is to be found mainly in one word: mediation.”

“Not many employees would deny that the today’s workplace is a much better place than it was 40 years ago. It's easy to forget that in the banking industry in the early 1970’s, if a female became engaged, she was expected to resign. Pregnancy dismissals passed unchallenged in any industry and if you were male or female and bullied, you had little option but to put up with it. Equality legislation too, though unwelcomed at first by many, has significantly improved the ability of many types of workers, be they disabled or from an ethnic or religious group, to access and enjoy employment.

“This has come at a cost however. Rights-based legislation has encouraged individuals to believe that their interests are best served by relying on procedures that, once invoked, will set in motion a number of experts who will then investigate or adjudicate on the legitimacy or otherwise of their treatment. This "pull the rip chord" approach to resolving problems at work often compounds a difficult situation. It can destroy working relationships, and the hope of ever restoring what has gone wrong to anything close to acceptable in the future” continued Mr Phillips.

Mediation is a constructive process. It works because it encourages the individual with the dispute to take ownership of the issue and to work hard to help resolve it. Statistics published by CEDR indicate that upwards of 80% of mediations are successful.