Building a Community of ADR Practitioners in the Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces

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Building a Community of ADR Practitioners in the
Department of National Defence and Canadian
Forces (DND/CF)

• 7th National Mediation Conference
• Darwin, Australia
• Lucie Allaire and Nicole
  Charron-Poggioli
• Director General, Alternative Dispute Resolution
• July 1, 2004

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Outline of Presentation

• Federal Canadian Scene
• ADR program at DND/CF
• Background
• Intervention Services
• Professional Development program for our ADR
  practitioners

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Background

• Federal Canadian Scene
• Emergence of ADR in the workplace
• Modernization of Human Resources Management in
  the Public Service of Canada

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Modernization of Human Resources Management in
the Public Service of Canada

• Creation of new office of Value and Ethics
• Increased participation of unions
• Changes being made
• to improve the labour management relationships
• to strengthen collective bargaining through
  mediation and conciliation
• to enable effective conflict management

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Informal Conflict Management System in
consultation with unions

• Developed in consultation with unions
• Key principles
• Voluntary
• Complementary to rights-based
• Confidentiality within legislative requirements
• Impartial and neutral

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ADR Program at DND/CF

• Grounded in need to improve the workplace and
  image of DND/CF as a model employer
• From pilots to fully operational programs
• Services offered internally impartially and
  from a neutral perspective
• Small policy unit and 16 Dispute Resolution
  Centres across Canada

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ADR Program at DND/CF

• Serves all military members, civilian employees
  and cadets across Canada, static units abroad and
  deployed members
• Short term goals
• To resolve conflicts (grievances and harassment
  complaints) with ADR
• Long term goals
• To reduce cost of unresolved conflicts
• To create a conflict competent culture

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ADR Program at DND/CF

• Evaluation framework
• Systematic feedback from users, employees,
  stakeholders on all our services.
• Service-wide survey of employees and members
  across Canada and abroad
• Quantitative data on our services

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ADR Program at DND/CF

• ADR intervention and training services
• Mediation
• Conflict Coaching
• Group Needs Assessment and Intervention
• Training

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How we are doing so far
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How we are doing so far
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How we are doing so far
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How we are doing so far
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Developing our Community of Practitioners

• Professional development program for our ADR
  practitioners
• Mediation Qualification program
• Conflict Coaching program
• Group Intervention program
• Peer Coaching program

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Mediation Qualification Program

• A 3 Phases Learning Program Strategy
• Phase-1 Basic Mediation Course
• Phase-2 Practice and Research
• Phase-3 Qualification Process
• Challenges
• Lessons Learned
• New MQP Training process

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Conflict Coaching Program

• Purpose and Principles
• To allow clients to develop skills and confidence
  to resolve conflicts on their own.
• One-on-one guided dialogue to develop
  competencies in conflict resolution through the
  trust established between a trained coach and a
  client.
• Prevention versus Resolution Dimension
• Learning Strategy
• Guiding Principles
• Integration with various Stakeholders
• Collaboration with the DRCs and DGADR

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Conflict Coaching Program

• Ethical Implications
• Impartiality
• Links between different ADR Processes
• Providing Information versus giving advice
• Challenges and Lessons Learned

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Group Intervention Program

• Purpose
• Group Needs Assessment
• A mean to understand and explore intra-group and
  inter-group experiences with workplace conflicts
   
• Group Intervention
• Designed collaboratively with employees/members
  affected by a conflict and approved by people
  with authority within a group to bring about
  positive changes
• Designed to encourage participants to bring to
  the surface underlying needs in a safe
  environment. These could include healing
  circles, workplace conferencing, facilitated
  workshops, training interventions, etc.

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Group Intervention Program

• Learning Strategy
• 3 Phases
• Unfreezing, Integration, Refreezing
• Guiding Principles
• Integration with various stakeholders
• Government Strategy
• Roll-out
• Challenges
• Lessons Learned

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Peer Coaching Program

• Purpose
• To develop excellence in mediation through peer
  coaching conversations
• To build a supportive community
• To be a learning organization
• The Model
• Integral versus behavioral
• New skills

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Peer Coaching Program

• Challenges
• Wearing multiple hats
• Letting go of the mask
• Need for an assessment process
• Unexpected benefits
• Co-delivery improved
• Greater awareness about self
• Cross-fertilization
• Lessons learned

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Conclusion

• Practicing what we preach is not always easy
• Thinking outside the box
• From a Network of Mediators to a Community of ADR
  Practitioners