Focus on Alternatives: The Second Element of Efficiency in Workplace Conflict Management Systems

What do we do when interest-based techniques will not work? This happens for a variety of reasons: lack of trust, instability of relationships, conflict styles, workplace cultures, non-workplace cultures, to name but a few.
The Alternatives Focus measures the extent to which the workplace fairness system makes provisions for these inevitabilities. The alternative provisions include investigations, findings of fact, early neutral evaluations and arbitrations. It provides the parties with a neutral evaluation of the issues rendering it easier to manage.
The Alternatives Focus also considers the cost, preferring lower-cost options to the higher cost ones. Instead of devoting tens of thousands of dollars to an expensive arbitration, the fairness system will call first for an Early Neutral Evaluation to give the parties a non-binding view of the matter. Alternatively, the fairness system may use managerial mediation as a low-cost form of dispute resolution to resolve a deadlock. The manager provides a low-cost power-based solution by imposing a decision upon them.