Workplace Mediation

DNR's Workplace Mediation Program is designed to provide every DNR employee with the opportunity to take a more active role in successfully resolving his or her own conflicts in a personal, informal and non-threatening manner. Your assistance in helping us to implement DNR's Workplace Mediation Program statewide will substantially improve the way we as a Department manage conflict. For more information contact: Richard Allen 410-260-8058.

Training was provided by Marvin E. Johnson, founder and director of the Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution. Mr. Johnson is a nationally recognized mediator, arbitrator and trainer with 30 years of dispute resolution experience. Funding for the training was obtained by the Office of Fair Practices through a grant by MACRO, the Maryland Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO) and from the department.

DNR Mediation Team Members include: Virginia Walsh, Richard Allen, Shara Alpert, Gene Deems, Karen DeStefano.

Workplace conflict is inevitable. It can occur many ways including disagreements between employees and managers, conflicts between co-workers, and disputes over work assignments, transfers, performance assessments, or terminations of employment. Unresolved conflicts can lower employee morale, increase absenteeism, cause the loss of valuable employees, and decrease productivity. DNR has implemented a Workplace Mediation Program to assist employees in resolving issues before they escalate to formal personnel actions. The goal is to get all DNR employees and fellow employees or managers to work out their own solutions.

Mediation is one way (a very good way) to solve disputes less formally, more quickly and often with better results. Mediation is an attempt to effect a peaceful settlement between disputing parties.

Mediation is a FREE, voluntary and confidential process which allows those people who have a dispute to come together with a trained mediator in a non-threatening environment and resolve their own disputes. It allows people to come together to work out their own solutions and arrive at an agreement that everyone can live with.

State of Maryland Shared Neutrals Mediation Program

After seeing a need for the development of more objective external workplace mediators to provide workplace mediation services to different Maryland state government units, the state of Maryland Dept. of Budget and Management (DBM) initiated the “Shared Neutrals Mediation Program”. DNR is among the six original signatory Maryland state government Executive agencies, with five certified DNR workplace mediators participating within the DBM “Shared Neutrals Program”. “The program provides free workplace mediation services, by using a pool of trained and experienced collateral duty mediators who provide mediation services to agencies other than their own, in exchange for mediation services from other state agencies in the pool”. This program is based on the very successful Federal Inter-Agency Shared Neutrals Program.

What are the varying types of workplace conflicts that the DBM “Shared Neutrals Program” can help a DNR or Maryland state government employee with? Issues within the workplace such as: co-employee harassment; conflicts between subordinate employees and their supervisors or Managers; workplace conflicts between non-supervisory employees; conflicts between supervisors and Managers; conflicts between departments within agencies; interagency conflicts; personality/work-style conflicts; boundary disputes; communication problems; and other workplace disputes.

The DBM Shared Neutrals Mediation Program Coordinator is Ms. Awilda Pena, who can be reached at 410-767-4953 or at apena@dbm.state.md.us.

Have conflict in your workplace? Learn more...