Employee Partners for Conflict Transformation offers a wide variety of tools you and your team can use to address conflict at Rutgers. These include:
Consultation and coaching from one of our conflict navigation specialists
- Feeling stuck? Don’t know how to proceed? A consultation is an opportunity to discuss, off the record, the conflict at hand, how it’s impacting you and your team, and explore possible pathways for resolving the conflict, be it through EmPaCT or referrals to other campus services that may be better positioned to help. Our specialists serve as thought partners and coaches to help you determine possible next steps.
- A consultation might include coaching on how to have a difficult conversation with a colleague or supervisor, clarifying your goals and expectations, or learning ways to give constructive feedback.
- During consultation, you’ll be able to discuss available trainings and workshops that can help your team or department learn more about respectful dialogue, collaboration and team building, and navigating conflict with more compassion, courage and confidence.
Facilitated dialogue
- Need a third-party neutral to help facilitate a conversation or meeting that you anticipate will be challenging for participants? Have previous attempts to discuss a thorny issue proven unproductive or frustrating?
- One of our specialists can help guide the conversation, ensure that everyone has an opportunity to speak, and support a more constructive dialogue. Unlike mediation, facilitated dialogue doesn’t necessarily seek to resolve a dispute, rather to help people have better conversations.
Mediation
- Mediation is a voluntary, confidential, and informal process to address a common problem with the support of an impartial facilitator who does not decide, but helps the parties reach their own solution. Mediation encourages parties to collaborate by sharing perspectives, identifying issues, and working toward a mutually agreeable path forward.
- EmPaCT’s trained mediators are there to guide and facilitate the process. During consultation, we can explain the process in more detail and help identify whether mediation might be an appropriate option.
Customized trainings and workshops
- Our staff includes seasoned facilitators who can work with you to design and deliver high-impact, experiential offerings for your group’s specific needs. These might be one-off sessions or ongoing workshops and learning labs to support a more thriving workplace culture within your group. Discuss available trainings and workshops to help your team or department learn more about respectful dialogue, collaboration and team building, and navigating conflict with more compassion, courage and confidence.
- Our offerings, available virtually and in-person, include Getting Comfortable with Conflict, Giving and Receiving Feedback, Intro to Nonviolent Communication, Collab Labs, Facilitating Better Conversations, and more.
Please note that EmPaCT services, including mediation, are not intended to supersede or replace University Policy or any Collectively Negotiated Agreements. Rather, they are meant to provide support for creating and sustaining a healthy work environment.
EmPaCT practices to International Ombuds Association standards of informality, impartiality, and confidentiality except where University policies require reporting (Title IX, e.g.) and referral to other offices (OEE, UEC, etc.).