Mediation and Workplace Wellness

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with two healthcare employees involved in an innovative partnership with local businesses in order to help develop workplace wellness programs.  The healthcare employees I met were responsible for developing innovative approaches to help employees make choices for more healthy lifestyles.  By engaging with employees and providing tools and information to support healthy decision making, these healthcare executives were focused on improving the health and wellbeing of these local workplaces.

Supported by the Affordable Care Act, workplace wellness programs are increasing throughout the country.  The potential benefits are well documented.  A RAND Corporation analysis found that participation in a workplace wellness program significantly contributed to employee weight control, an increase in exercise and smoking cessation.  The Centers for Disease Control have documented many benefits of workplace wellness programs, both for employees and employers, including increased employee engagement and productivity.  And a 2010 Harvard Business Review case study shows that for one large employer, the return on investment in a workplace wellness program worked out to a return of $2.71 for every dollar spent.

In speaking with these healthcare employees and learning more about what they do, it struck me that mediation and other conflict resolution mechanisms could be a vital part of any successful workplace wellness program.   Like existing workplace wellness programs that focus on physical health and wellbeing, conflict resolution programs can help empower employees with tools for better engaging with conflict and designing solutions to workplace problems.  By helping employees better understand what the roots of conflict are and what resources they have to better handle problems, conflict resolution systems in the workplace can have significant benefits to the lives of employees and the workplace as a whole.

What can these systems look like?  Just like the wellness programs developed by the healthcare professionals, conflict resolution systems can be tailored to the needs of each individual workplace.  They can include outreach efforts like training to educate employees about conflict management as well as formal programs for employees in conflict to use, like creating an ombudsman office or developing an alternative dispute resolution program.  For example, mediation is a tool that can be used to resolve workplace disputes from minor miscommunications all the way to legal disputes. And by providing alternatives to litigation to resolve workplace conflicts, the use of alternative dispute resolution systems can result in a significant decrease in stress, expense and wasted time for both employees and employers alike.

Employee wellness can be measured on multiple axes.  While wellness programs are an excellent step in addressing physical and mental workplace wellbeing, employers should also examine their conflict resolution systems in order to maximize the wellbeing of the workplace.