Adv. Meerza Zaheer, Mediator,
AMA
Senior Associate
(Operations), SoftSettle Support
I encountered with a tough assignment to find an issue getting resolved. This is with regard to a fight of an woman employee against the management of an MNC Company. The MNC approached the Association of Mediation & Arbitration (AMA) while I have been discharging duties (practicing) as an empanelled mediator in that particular NGO. I would like to share the crucial process and ultimate success of the mediation as well.
Mrs. Mercy Kurien the central character was very much disappointed over the attitude of her management which was reluctant to take action against her immediate boss, the Project Officer Mr. Veera Raghavan. (The cause of action was that Mr.Veera Raghavan fascinated over the beauty of Mercy, he tried to molest her on one auspicious day. The Management instead of taking serious action against the Project Office upon her complaint tried to appease him and retained him in the same post of the Project Officer but for a namesake reprimand.
The position of Mercy Kurien is that she lost trust in working with the MNC and she had made her mind to cross over to other competitors’ company overcoming the barriers of the bond executed by her, by adequately compensating with the support of the competitor company. And in case of any difficulty arises, she could atleast remain in the MNC, but she never wanted Mr.Veera Raghavan in her boss’s chair.
On the other hand MNC adhered to the strict policies and norms of the company. It had to prevent Mercy from defecting over to other company, as she was having some confidential information like client list and their proposed way of discharging price policy adopted towards their clients.
I could recognize the intrinsic desires of Mercy about her future of her professional life. If she could able to sense more accommodative environment to discharge her duties, getting herself duly recognized by the management with independent charge particularly not responsible to Mr.Veera Raghavan, getting proper emoluments she can get herself retained in the same MNC.
While MNC’s interests were quite unfavourable as far as Mrs. Mercy is concerned. The most vehement aspect of the MNC’s attitude was that there was no question removing the Project Officer from his post so long as Company’s staff maintenance policy does not permit it.
I assessed the situation to be most favourable for a bottle neck finish. But once unyielding Mercy suddenly took a turn when MNC was ready to file an injunction suit against her in case she defects over to the competitor’s company inspite of the fact whether she could compensate or not. But she was still reluctant to work with the Project Officer. I felt it was the right time to have a caucus with the Project Officer.
The Caucus session with the Project Officer (PO) happened to be a crucial one for him and even me. So far from Mercy’s disclosure, I found Mr.Veera Raghavan, the PO was god fearing and at the same time he did not want to bow down to the pressures of his subordinate. Hence I had to be calculative in playing a role of a counsellor or a therapist in trying my efforts to get the situation very soothing for the party to admit his mistakes. I persuaded the Project Officer or PO that once he admits the commission of such act (against Mrs. Mercy) or confess, it won’t be divulged to anybody.
Project Officer, in this so so-called counselling session, was recovering from a confused tension and he had reasons to fear that he would not be respected by his fellow subordinates once this version is publicized. I gave him a good answer that there is every reason for others to believe that he had manhandled Mercy in that occasion so far as they keep away in the two poles projecting a strained relationship. But once Mercy rebuilds an amicable relationship with him, there won’t be any room for suspecting about the Project Officer’s act. As far as Mercy’s position is concerned I gave the Project Officer the assurance that she would treat it as a forgotten issue and a new chapter of relationship would be there to be prospered for betterment of the business of the company and their careers.
The pan of guilt has been haunting PO for quite some time which made him more tense and felt like he is in turmoil. Hence he felt that the counselling session is ideal situation to bring him to be in the safer side. He admitted that it was true that situation on that particular day prompted him to commit such an act. He also wanted me to be the custodian of this secret and it shall not be even divulged to Mercy. (You know the ethics of mediation)
After the interaction with PO I took initiative to meet Mrs. Mercy for a final private session. During that session I suggested that nobody is free from committing mistakes and when the Project Officer was ready to take in a spirit to work amicably with Mercy in all future dealings, it would better for her not to be confined to such single thought about and should never a prisoner of the past. Or otherwise if she was adamant, that would definitely contaminate the willingness of others to comply with their commitments.
The things clicked. Though Mrs. Mercy took some time to decide over things, finally she herself took the initiative to come forward and let me know about her willingness to work jointly with PO provides some proposals had to be complied by the management.
MNC accepted Mercy’s conditions and the Company offered some more monetary increments to Mercy Kurien against her efficiency in work in respect of increasing client confidence and bringing up more clients to the company.
This agreement reflected a win-win proposition.
Do you think whether I conducted counselling session with Project Officer to extract the truth about his intention was a sheer waste? You may argue even without conducting the counselling session or without extracting truth from the Project Officer, the mediator could have gone for the same agreement between MNC and Mercy Kurien. So long as I had succeeded in bringing Mercy to this agreement, there is no meaning in extracting the truth from Project Officer in the counselling session with him. But it has to be borne in mind that once the pan of guilt pricked the Project Officer, there might be tendencies for him to be rude to Mercy in the further dealing even though she expressed to work with him after the persuasion of me (Mediator).
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