Our point of departure

We work off a simple premise: that the most productive workplaces are those where relations between the people that work there are at their best. They are also the most enjoyable and rewarding places in which to work. [See here] The converse is also true: the most uncompetitive workplaces — and the most unpleasant places in which to work — are those blighted by conflict.

Our job is to help the parties to make their workplaces more cooperative and mutually beneficial. To establish a competitive edge, employers need to be able to draw fully on the skills, ideas and commitment of their employees. To be motivated, employees need be treated with respect, given opportunities, and acknowledged and rewarded for their efforts

What's makes for a high-performance workplace?

The really great workplaces are those that combine the full suite of best employment practices — in recruitment; in induction, training and development; in workplace equality; in occupational health, safety and well-being, in business education, in reward systems, in work-life balance, in employee participation, in appropriate dispute resolution, etc — and then deploy them in pursuit of organisational goals and shared interests.

How do we help?

Our principal role is that of facilitator. As such, we prefer to act in an independent capacity, and on the joint brief of all stakeholders. The combination of our credibility, expertise and experience helps us to deliver the outcomes people are looking for. Sometimes we are retained by one or some of the stakeholders only to give advice or assistance, but the ethos behind that help remains the same.

Why use a facilitator?

We are simply a resource to the parties in contexts where stakeholder consent is needed to achieve outcomes. If the parties are able to get agreement on the way forward through direct discussions, consultations or negotiations, well and good. In doing so, individual parties commonly draw on the advice of their own legal, human resource or business strategy consultants.

However, where issues are complex, stakes high or baggage troublesome, it's often sensible for the parties to go further and engage a joint resource - a facilitator whose job is not to give partisan advice but to promote the prospects of general agreement. A skilled facilitator can take the parties where they cannot go in unmediated exchanges.

Using a facilitator does not mean abdicating responsibility; rather resourcing a process with appropriate support measures where circumstances warrant this.

"In all our excellent workplaces the atmosphere of mutual trust and respect was overwhelming. We became convinced that central to every excellent workplace is an understanding that to produce quality work in Australia, one must have quality working relationships. This applies particularly to workplaces with high levels of uncertainty, demanding skills requirements and turbulent markets.

Simply the Best Workplaces in Australia
Daryll Hull & Vivienne Read
December 2003
[ACCIRT working paper 88 - Study undertaken with support from the Business Council of Australia to identify a number of excellent workplaces in Australia and to draw some general conclusions concerning the nature of excellence at work across Australia]
For the full text see here.]

 ... and the USA

"Efforts to build an effective labor relations culture system by focusing on the quality of the relationships among employees, supervisors and managers, and on reaching collective bargaining agreements in a timely and peaceful fashion without resort to extensive use of National Mediation Board procedures, appear to offer considerable potential for improving firm financial performance and the industry's overall service quality."

Mutual Gains or Zero Sum? Labor Relations and Firm Performance in the Airline Industry
Jody Hoffer Gittell, Andrew von Nordenflycht & Thomas Kochan 
Industrial and Labor Relations Review
Vol 57, No 2 (January 2004)
MIT Global Airline Industry Program