Shawn Gatto, Esquire, Certified in Mediation and Conflict Resolution

What is mediation?

Mediation is the process whereby two parties voluntarily agree to meet with a neutral facilitator (a certified mediator) in a neutral locale in order to discuss conflicts, difficulties or disputes and collaborate to come to a mutually agreed upon resolution.  It helps people to talk through issues and come to a peaceful resolution of conflict without having to go to court.

What are the benefits of mediation?

Mediation has many advantages:

• There is a high success rate of agreement
• Participants are more likely to adhere to an agreement they have created
• It is less expensive than going to court
• Cases are heard more quickly as there is no court document to content with
• Mediation sessions take less time than going to court
• Mediation is flexible as it is scheduled to your convenience
• Participants are more likely to feel satisfied with the outcome
• It is confidential and private

What does the mediator do?

• Remains neutral and impartial
• Facilitates the process
• Helps participants reach a mutually satisfactory agreement
• Helps participants improve their communication with each other

What does the mediator not do?

• The mediator does not give legal advice

What kind of cases does a mediator handle?

• Employer and Employee
• Neighbor and Neighbor
• Business/consumer
• Interpersonal relationships
• Organizational conflict
• Cross Cultural Conflict

Rex Gatto Ph.D., of Gatto Associates, LLC, in collaboration with Sam Deep, Ask Sam Deep, meet once a month with small cohorts of 8-12  executives, managers, and entrepreneurs, to learn about leadership best practices in a variety of areas and then discuss practical solutions to their own workplace issues. These confidential group roundtables will be followed by monthly individual virtual coaching, webinars, and conference calls.

• For maximum results, the program is spaced over a one year period
• For maximum convenience, classes are scheduled 7:00-10:30 AM on the first Tuesday or Thursday of each month.
• For maximum impact, you’ll learn and grow together with a cohort of 12 peers.
• For maximum growth, you will be assigned to either Rex Gatto or Sam Deep - two seasoned leadership experts - as your personal coach.
• For maximum support, you are invited to dial in to a monthly conference phone call with Rex, Sam and your cohort members.
• For maximum learning, all instructional materials are assembled into a comprehensive Leadership Manual.
• For maximum relevance, you will have a personal assessment of your best opportunities for leadership growth.

There is no doubt that stress levels are skyrocketing in the workplace today: we would be crazy if we weren’t stressed. The term “job security” appears to be obsolete, as the economic crisis that began in the banking, the housing market and automotive industry has spread like a virus throughout the entire country, threatening our economic stability. Most employees today are struggling with stress and anxiety due to uncertainty. We, as Human Resources Leaders, have a great opportunity during this period of the unpredictable workplace to guide employees to control and lessen stress.   We can take a leadership position in helping employees in the workplace learn and grow through this negative time of turmoil.  We need to offer our employees a process for stress reduction techniques that focus on resilience. Resilience, as you know, is the fostering of a method of positive thinking after having been exposed to unfavorable life circumstance which cause stress.

The objective of a resilience program is not to eradicate stress, but to teach methods to manage our responses to the increasing pressures that exist in the workplace. Stress is both an emotional and physiological response to difficult or unfamiliar situations and it has become almost impossible to escape. Even if a person does not directly experience stressful situations within the workplace, simply hearing news reports of increasing layoffs, job losses, and company closings is more than enough to cause one to wonder, “Will I be next?” Having guilt because one is left and friends have all been caught in a reduction causes elevated stress.

The presence of stress in the workplace is extremely high, given our circumstances. We all know that stress and anxiety preclude learning, productivity and efficiency in the workplace. Employers can help employees become less stressed by utilizing stress reduction techniques in response to negative, debilitating, and victimization thinking.

Implementing a resilience program, offering workplace stress training and conflict resolution, stopping the negative thinking of self, work and future, and increased positive communications can be great places to start. Human Resources Leaders can convey the crucial message that stress is not caused by events alone. It is how we chose to interpret and give meaning to work related events that will ultimately hurt or heal us. It would be beneficial for people to understand both the negative and positive reactions to stress and anxiety so they can recognize their own tendencies.

One common example of a negative reaction to stress is self-denial. Denying that stressful events are emotionally affecting “me” in the workplace is illogical and can be the cause of physical ailments, but some still use it as a coping method. It is important for people to actually confront negative thoughts and the issues that are occurring in their lives but understand there is no need to panic.

Expressing thoughts in writing, even in the form of a letter that will never be sent, is a method of self-confrontation. It allows an internal dialog that will help to deal with the stressful situation and clear a path for successful stress management techniques.

There are the tried and true techniques to utilize with employees that can reduce the stress levels and anxiety at work. Many of the techniques are familiar to most, but should be reiterated in order to allow workers to recognize their ability to manage workplace stress. The following are a few examples of simple stress reducing tips for you to pass onto to your employees:

- Don’t eat lunch at your desk. Get up and walk around during your lunch break, and go outside on nice days. Take a break and talk to people in the workplace at least twice a day.
- Create an “I Did” list (list of daily accomplishments) at the end of each day. This list will help you to recognize all the services you provide. For an example, when you pick up the ringing phone and address questions, you are providing a service.

- At the end of the day, lay out one project to do first thing in the morning. When you come in the next day, do not check your voice mail or email until you have finished that project. This will provide a sense of accomplishment and the satisfaction of a completed task. This will boost confidence and self esteem, and stop the unorganized thinking and chaos that can ensue from heavy workloads.

- Do a deep breathing exercise to relax and mentally debrief.

With the latest statistics showing that the unemployment rate is the highest that it has been in over thirty years, there is an increasing need for resilience thinking in the workplace to combat workplace anxiety. A definition of the workplace is an opportunity for each employee to demonstrate gifts and talents. Help your employees to understand that they can indeed deal with the stress in a positive manner while illuminating their own gifts and talents.

Gatto Associates, LLC, will be holding  Summer 2010 CPA development workshops at its training facility in Pittsburgh, PA. These courses are designed for CPAs to help provide direction toward successful career development.

$345.00 Per Person
*Discount for multiple attendees from one firm
Includes Continental Breakfast/ Lunch
A copy of Rex Gatto’s Best Selling Book
“Mentoring Process for CPAs”
Choose from one of the following dates:

*Each Workshop Qualifies For 6 CPE

Topics will include:

• Leadership within the firm

• Communication inside and outside the firm

• Dealing with difficult employees and clients

• Creating a competitive edge through mentoring for CPAs

For more information or to register please call (412) 344-2277
For complete information on our training programs and assessments, please  click here

Facing the Emotional Fallout of Layoffs in the Workplace

In light of the deepening economic crisis, I have been contacted by several different publications for interviews to discuss various ways that businesses have been affected. Time and again I have heard myself say to the reporter on the other end of the phone, “It won’t last forever.” However, it feels like it might to many workers affected by layoffs in businesses. The people I am referring to are not those who have lost their jobs, but those who are experiencing the negative effects in a different way. Those who have been left behind. The effects range from anxiety that they could be next, to confusion regarding their new and increased work responsibilities, to feelings of guilt that their co-workers and friends have lost the very job that they still maintain. How can we, as business leaders, help them?

Recently, the focus of my role as a business psychologist and consultant has been coaching business leaders to help employees who are left behind after a layoff situation deal with the emotional toll that has been taken. I often compare the devastation of layoffs in the workplace to a raging forest fire. The landscape of many businesses has been altered, but when the brush is finally cleared away, new growth can begin to occur within a year or two. So what can leaders in the workplace do to ensure that their employees are prepared to face such radical changes in their jobs, and to help them understand their vital roles in the re-emergence of their company after the “fire”?

The first step for company leaders is to become extremely visible and interactive with employees on a daily basis. Clear and open communication regarding the current state of affairs is key to helping re-establish trust. Holding daily, 15 minute “touch base” meetings to discuss priorities and goals can go a long way toward alleviating stress for workers. The employees who remain after a layoff will have new responsibilities, increased workload, and are often members of reorganized teams or departments. Bringing people together for lunch meetings, for example, where questions and concerns are addressed, is an effective method for opening the lines of communication between managers and employees. The result will be a more focused and cohesive group.

Right now, leaders have the unique opportunity, through the rebirth of their organizations, to discover what their greatest strengths are, and to communicate them daily so that confidence can be instilled in their employees. Layoffs in the workplace have been extremely difficult emotionally for those who remain. Leaders must communicate that they are in this together, while continually giving feedback, and recognizing high performance in a constructive, caring, mentoring, and coaching manner. Creating a team approach, helping employees remain resilient after the stress of layoffs, and learning how to best work together should be the focus of today’s leaders.

A resilient leader is one who, by definition, bounces back from difficult experiences. In my role as an executive coach to corporate leaders, I often find myself discussing workplace resilience. More specifically, how effective leaders must plan for a healthy work environment by focusing on the positive aspects of their business and upcoming changes, while ensuring that others have mapped out a resilience plan of action as well. Three questions should be answered by today’s leaders: Are you resilient? Are you a role model for others to be resilient? Are you leading a resilient organization?

A resilience action plan for employees is often formulated after a meeting with a mentor or coach. A coach must be an optimistic role model who:

4 has a vested interest in the employee’s success;

4 must discuss the employee’s strengths and character qualities;

4 takes care to build a professional relationship;

4 creates a safe environment where employees can ask for, and receive, guidance;

4 supports development without evaluating; and

4 provides the appropriate feedback to allow the employee to learn, change, and develop.

More importantly, a coach who is a resilient leader must maintain an open dialog with all employees to discuss anticipated changes within the organization, as well as future expectations for individuals’ roles within the company.

Being an effective change leader is a way to demonstrate resilient leadership. I often say that leading a change process is paramount to taking a journey through a new country to place not yet seen. Resilient leaders must redefine opportunities for themselves and help others to use their abilities to improve upon their newly created roles and responsibilities within the change process. The responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of today’s leaders to ask the difficult questions and challenge complacent thinking. Once these questions have been asked, a resilient leader will be able to discover the people with the right talent, and mentor, coach, and support them through the process of change. Are you a resilient leader?

For more information about resilient leadership, or to schedule a web workshop on Resilient Leadership, call Gatto Associates at (412) 344-2277, or email Jeff Cermak, Marketing Director, at Jeff@rexgatto.com.

Organizational, Employee and New Hire Assessments:

How to Make These Tools for Success Work for You

INTRODUCTION

The first quarter seems to bring with it organizational reassessment, that is opportunities to assess products, services, and current employees, and the opportunity to hire new ones.  Given that, it should also be a time to put every organizational product, service and employee on trial for its life, and to examine from a systems point of view what is supported in your organization.  Without question, 2009 was one of the more brutal years in the labor market in a very long time.  However, in this past year, hires totaled 59.4 million (Bureau of Labor and Statistics).  Even during this recession, there are still millions of people being hired.  Assessment helps organizations find the right fit for both new hires and current employees, thus decreasing turnovers and increasing productivity and profitability.

Three categories of assessment tools to assist in an organizational systems examination:  An Organizational Assessment, an Employee Assessment, and a Pre-employment Hiring Assessment.  These Assessment Tools can be broken into two separate functioning units:  Tests and Inventories.  Tests have either right or wrong answers (2+2=4) that do not change; they are either correct or incorrect.  Inventories, in contrast, have no right or wrong answers because the purpose is to identify characteristics, preferences, or mannerisms a person may have.

ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT

An organizational assessment (test or inventory) can be utilized to create a new understanding of the synergy within your organization.  From a systems approach, the following can be ascertained:

• How the development or change impact the individuals and the organization
• What the present and new levels of competence are that people will need to demonstrate
• What the organizational culture presently supports and what will need to change
• What vision your Champion Leader created
• How well the organizational teams creatively support the present needs while exploring new possibilities

Organizational assessment can give great insight into how the above points are perceived and understood throughout the organization.

PRE-EMPLOYMENT ASSESSMENT

Pre-employment assessments (test or inventory) have become more prevalent in recent years, especially given the ease of completing assessments via the Internet.  Prospective employees no longer have to travel to the job locale for initial testing:  candidates can be weeded out at much less cost to the company by taking assessments online.  Generally the online assessments (or pencil and paper if appropriate) are used to measure a person’s:

• Knowledge

• Skills
• Abilities
• Other characteristics as needed

Once job requirements from a job description have been written, a combination of assessments can be chosen to identify how a candidate might or might not fit a given job.  It is advisable to use assessments that are valid and reliable predictors of success in a job position:  you need to be aware of which assessments measure what, and which create the predictors of success in a specific type of job (i.e., sales, management, manufacturing, administrative, etc.).  Many assessments are available to HR personnel to assess a candidate and support a better understanding of her/his knowledge, relationship-building skills, team building, emotional quotient, and general skills and abilities.  One of the most difficult aspects of this process, however, is to find that right combination that elicits the most appropriate information to render a successful job fit.

Types of Assessments from which to Choose:
Aptitude - knowledge and ability to apply skills (math, language, typing, reasoning, etc.)
Cognitive Ability – analysis and solution of problems, drawing conclusions: potential to learn and think
Personality – characteristics, job fit
Integrity – honesty, attitude toward theft, drugs, etc.

Psychomotor – coordination and manual dexterity
Physical – capabilities (i.e., lifting)

How to Integrate Pre-employment Testing into Your Own System
These assessment process integrates quite easily into the processes most organizations already have in place.  Once you have identified the leading candidates for the position in question, have them complete the assessments you have chosen based on your organizational culture and needs.  After culling the information from the assessments and narrowing the list down to the top several candidates, bring these candidates in for an interview and ask customized questions designed from the assessment results.  You can now make a knowledgeable decision, backed by not only personal interviews, but by a wealth of reliable data.

EMPLOYEE EVALUATION AND APPRAISAL SYSTEM

The key to the success of every organization is the performance of its employees. As a professional in a supervisory capacity, you serve an important role in the career and personal development of the staff under your direction. The process of assessing performance should foster open communication and create an environment that enhances the development of skills and the performance of the individuals involved. Feedback is one of the most powerful tools for supporting and improving an individual’s performance and increasing a company’s profitability.

An effective evaluation and appraisal system should:

• Improve the employees’ understanding of the job in relation to the organization’s standards and measure how well the employees are meeting these standards.
• Link evaluations to the organization’s business objectives.
• Motivate employees to want to improve.
• Assist in the development of action plans for improvement.
• Create ownership on behalf of staff members for their own career development.
• Be both formal and informal.
• Improve recruiting and retention of top performers.
• Leverage employees’ strengths.
• Encourage employees to assume greater responsibility.
• Provide a basis for periodic salary adjustments.
• Aid management in selecting the right people for promotion, transfer, and training.
• Provide safeguards of objectivity and fairness in the assignment of personnel.

People need to be educated and coached on providing meaningful feedback as well as receiving it.

SUMMARY

By utilizing our tools for success, pre-employment hiring assessments and an employee evaluation and appraisal system, an organization can strengthen its foundation with high quality hires and dedicated, productive and loyal employees.  A good foundation brings you one step closer to building a great organization.  Using the right tools builds success!

Gatto Associates, LLC offers a full range of assessments, available online, that can be utilized to further target opportunities for development of professional skills.  In addition, we offer workshops and coaching sessions on Giving and Receiving Feedback in the Workplace.  Please call us for a free consultation regarding all of these tools for success. Contact me at (412) 344-2277 or email me through the website, www.rexgtto.com.

Dr. Gatto was featured in the January 2010 issue of Perspectives, a monthly magazine put out by the Pittsburgh Human Resources Association.

Checkout our new video page! This page will house interviews and presentations done by Dr. Gatto. Click the picture below to be sent to the link.