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The Most Common Examples Of Mediation For Small Businesses

Introduction

Running a business is demanding as challenges abound. This makes it important to get a strategy. A strategy is what will enable your business grow, sustain its growth, manage relationship with customers and handle everyday issues.

Some of these issues most times, will include, disputes between employees, disputes with an employee and dispute with a client.
Not knowing how to effectively handle issues, can drain the resources of your business. It can make you struggle, and in worse case, make your business stand still.

No business owner wants this. This is why it’s relevant to gain understanding on common mediation examples, knowing how the mediation process work, and knowing how to successfully spot a good business mediator.

Table of Contents

What is mediation?

Mediation involves employing the service of a neutral party


Mediation is an act of dispute resolution. The parties involved, agree to employ the service or help of a neutral third party(mediator) to resolve the issue.

A mediator is skilled in asking questions, listening to opinions and making final judgment thought to be best for the parties involved.
Mediation is a speedy process when compared to litigation. The proceedings of mediation tend to be more informal, and the final outcome can be decided in few hours.

Why you should consider mediation for your business

Mediation examples are numerous, and the relevance of mediation itself, cannot be overemphasized. From saving you the stress that comes from a tedious litigation process, to confidentiality, flexibility, and even fairness of judgment (as the third party is usually a neutral player).

Here are some vital benefits that should make you consider, employing mediation for your business dispute resolutions.

Neutral Expertise

With litigation, the end judgment is usually unpredictable. For example, a seasoned judge may have the skill to easily learn the details of a case, but his judgments will be from generalizations. This naturally means that, choosing to employ litigation for dispute resolutions, will be giving up control, to a person who may not have the time and patience to learn all the complexities of the case.
With , you can have lay men involved in jury. As a result, getting a fair judgement will reduce.

With mediation, you don’t get all this. It instead, gives you and your opposite party, the chance to stay in control, while you enjoy fair judgement from neutral expertise.

Cost

The cost for employing mediation is cheaper than using litigation. Reason is because the parties involved usually share the cost of hiring the mediator.

Compared to when you have to pay a lawyer alone, it’s an advantage. Do not forget also, there are fewer billable hours on the books for mediation, as it is faster than a usual court.

Even more, research records from major corporations, showed that 90% considered ADR as a cost control technique, while about 54% mentioned that cost pressures affect their decisions to use ADR. Hence, mediation gives you an opportunity to save enormously, or in order case, save about 70% of the cost of using a court.

Confidentiality

The traditional litigation measure of dispute resolutions is a matter of public records. On the other hand, mediation supports confidentiality. Also, when sensitive topics involved, mediation is the best option to employ.

The mediation process supports Confidentiality

Amiability

Mediation can help save your business relationship instead of dissolving it. For example, a major difference between mediation and litigation is that, litigation is usually the case of one party against another (portraying a direct winner versus a direct loser). Mediation on the other hand, portrays one party working with another party, with the intent of reaching a mutually beneficial outcome for both ends.

Flexibility

Anyone who steps the court room, is supposed to receive a fair and equal kind of treatment. This is a very important principle by which a court system functions. This may however, not be the case sometimes, as a “paint by numbers” operation does not permit important nuances of each case to influence the outcome.

In contrast, mediation gives room for greater flexibility, as there are no limitations to the level of ingenuity and innovation parties can showcase in reaching an agreement.

Party Representation

With mediation, you can choose who represents you. This of course, is when you decide not to represent yourself.

In contrast with litigation, in the U.S courts, you can only send an attorney to represent your business, which will obviously incur an additional expense.

Business mediation examples – How does business mediation work?

Unless the parties involved, agree on an informal basis to resolve their issues, one party may seek to either enforce terms, prevent an action or seek for monetary gains, when they take the other to court.
Instead of taking this timely and costly route, parties involved can agree to employ mediation, by bringing a neutral third party to help the parties involved reach a satisfactory solution.

Mediators help provide problem-solving and conflict resolutions skills in order to solve a dispute outside of a court room. It usually takes skill, knowledge and experience to access all the vital elements of the conflict.
Mediators facilitate fact analysis and filtration of irrelevant facts, feelings and hyperbole with the end goal of arriving at a satisfactory resolution. They also help to suggest creative and unique solutions, while also providing information on the consequences of any legal action taken during mediation.

How To Find A Business Mediator

Nowadays, there is hardly anything you cannot find online, and a good mediator is no different.
When you and the other party make a decision on employing mediation, the next thing to look out for, is a great business mediator – A mediator who has handled different mediation examples.

It’s important to note that, selecting a mediator may not come easy, hence may take some time.
The reason is because, like there are different mediation examples, mediators do not have the same height of training, and invariably equal expertise and experience.
Hence, search for someone who has experience in business mediation. Ask them questions about the cases they have mediated. How long were they, before they officially became a mediator.

Search for an experience mediator


Another thing you can do, is search for “conflict resolutions” or “mediation expertise” in your local phone book.

Lastly, if you are a member of any small business association near you, ask them of mediation programs related to your brand.

The Most Common Business Mediation Examples

Family business mediation example

Disputes related to family trust and family relationship is consistently on increase. Now at 43% all-time high. This record points at the numbers brought before courts in the U.K.

The increase however, showcases the extra pressure faced by the court systems throughout the western world.
Mediation can provide relief to this stressed up system.

Also, as mediation is collaborative by nature, it can help preserve relationships. This is vital when family and business are on the line.

Mediation in the family can help preserve relationships

Bankruptcy mediation example

Records show that, from 1980 to 2017, the number of corporate bankruptcy averaged 45,686.15 per year. Bankruptcy as a mediation example, is an issue in business that often requires a professional aid to solve.
A variety of bankruptcy related cases, involving complex and multi party issues can be resolved with mediation.

Lots of cases from a single bankruptcy, can be compiled into an orderly process. This gives room for swift resolution through mediation. During this process, court approvals are easy to get when is need for it. This is because, judges are more than happy to lend a hand for issues being resolved independently, rather than being tied up in court.

Employment mediation example

Needful to say, issues related to employment discrimination are very common. For example, the year 2017 alone, recorded 84,254 employment discrimination charges.
Employment as a part of mediation examples, offers a more structured agreement procedure for dealing with discrimination related issues. This is in comparison to some other collective agreement procedure.

For employment mediation example, when a settlement is reached, mediator will draft a document for the terms and conditions of settlement. This sheet of document is created before adjournment of the next mediation session, where the settlement gets finalized.

In cases, where arbitration, administrative action, or litigation is pending, the settlement method permits the immediate dismissal of the case once it is signed.

Workplace mediation example

Workplace related disputes can occur as a result of different reasons. From economic shifts, to power tussle, differing values, interpersonal struggles, etc. Employing mediation as a tool to resolve these issues means prevention of expensive and negative effects of workplace disputes, like absenteeism. Doing this on the long run keeps the relationship preserved.

Small business mediation example

Receiving threat for legal action is something common to small business owners. Infact, about 43% of them have reportedly received a threat of cases or are involved in a civil lawsuit.

With these scenarios of pending litigation, time and invariably money, can be difficult resources to find. Hence, convincing your opposite party to meditate can be by far preferable.

If you are a member of the “Better Business Bureau” or “Chamber of Commerce Association,” seek for mediation related information and programs, which may be tailored to fit your kind of business.

Real estate mediation example

In 2005, about 26,959 real estate related trials were recorded across U.S.A. The thing is, once it’s home purchases related, not only is large financial investment involved, emotions are involved. This makes the situation, a bit difficult to navigate.

Right now, most real estate agents provide mediation for seller to buyer disputes. The seller and buyer are bound by this, but the contractor is not. A real estate agent is only bound by the terms of his commission, and not the terms and conditions of the contract itself.

In cases where this agent does something wrong, a separate lawsuit is employed to resolve the issue.

Insurance mediation example

The compensation of workers is supposed to also sort out, to a large extent, the medical costs for injured workers. This compensation is different for payments for lost time(if there was a waiting period).

In 2014 alone, the amount recorded as insurance payment for over 129.6million covered workers, was 6.8trillion dollars. With this amount of money along this line, insurance related conflicts are common.
However, the complex nature of the conflicts makes creative problem solving ability relevant.

Nonetheless, insurance issues are one of the most ideal type of case for mediation. It is vital to find a well-versed and well skilled mediator, in insurance law.

Conclusion

You have probably heard that a workplace full of happiness, is a productive workplace. Meaning that business owners, employers or entrepreneurs, cannot afford to allow disputes and contentions in their midst.
In a highly competitive market place, only an effective communication can help foster a harmonious working environment. A disgruntled employee with lackadaisical management ability can result in poor customer service and loss for any business owner.

The relevance of having a measure to resolve conflict is very vital. The current trend places emphasis on the need to understand mediation examples, and invariably, how the mediation process works generally. Doing this will help eliminate resentment which may build up and cause productivity to plummets.