Our society has grown extremely litigious, especially in the arena of employment law. In 2013, discrimination complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) were 93,727. Plaintiffs repeatedly indicate that it is “how the situation was handled by supervisors and the organization” that fueled their anger and provided the energy for them to exercise their right to sue.
Courageous Conversation seeks to assist clients in avoiding costly, unnecessary, and protracted employment litigation by proactively addressing and managing conflict early on in a dispute, shifting organizations to collaborative communication strategies, educating supervisors and executive managers in discrimination prevention, and including mediation processes in employment contracts and as a vehicle for addressing employment disputes.
SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND DISCRIMINATION PREVENTION TRAINING
Courageous Conversation’s Proprietary Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Prevention Training is designed and delivered by employment attorney Elaine Rosenblum. Elaine brings a breadth of experience and skill to the Discrimination Prevention Training arena, including legal experience assisting the Special Master on the class action EEOC v. Astra and at The New York State Division of Human Rights and the EEOC mediation training program. In addition, Elaine’s managerial proficiency, based on 13 years as a corporate marketing manager working with numerous Fortune 500 companies, enables her to empathize with the management challenges her audiences often face. Further, Elaine has combined her legal knowledge and seasoned managerial knowledge with her Collaborative Negotiation model to create a unique brand of discrimination prevention training that directly addresses the catalysts of workplace discrimination.
Specifically, Elaine employs her noted Collaborative Negotiation training as added value to Sexual Harassment and Discrimination prevention curricula because she deeply understands that a root cause of these legal disputes is poor communication, at the onset, among the parties involved.
Courageous Conversation’s training combines the legal issues concerning Discrimination Prevention with a communication paradigm that enables sensitive Sexual Harassment and Discrimination workplace issues to be discussed with decency, respect, and integrity. This combination creates a more productive work environment for the future and reduces unnecessary litigation costs by closing the critical communication gap left by other Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Prevention training.
Conventional training typically fails to model the crucial and empowering neutral language communication skills that demonstrate exactly how a supervisor or employee should initiate and conduct the courageous conversations that prevent, halt, and protect against workplace discrimination and its legal consequences. As a result of this gap, conventional training does not minimize legal exposure to employment law and Title VII discrimination claims or maximize HR’s ability to meet its compliance and legal obligations.
Courageous Conversation’s Proprietary Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Prevention Training enables supervisors and employees to:
- Differentiate among the often confusing legal definitions and nuances of Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Law
- Recognize Sexual Harassment and Discrimination
- Understand one’s rights and responsibilities as an employee of, or supervisory agent for, an organization when Sexual Harassment and Discrimination arise
- Learn how to enlist the company’s discrimination policies
- Avoid becoming a potential target of Sexual Harassment or Discrimination
- Create non-judgmental forums for discussion about these sensitive topics
- Obtain the communication skills that enable all employees to discuss the uncomfortable topics of Sexual Harassment and Discrimination and thereby resolve problems before they escalate to costly and protracted litigation
CONFLICT ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION
Organizations of all sizes experience conflict among various personnel and/or teams. Conflict Assessment and Evaluation seeks to identify and analyze the root cause(s) of legal and non-legal conflicts facing organizations.
PHASE I
Typically, in Phase I, a third-party neutral mediator conducts private, confidential interviews with all parties involved in the conflict. Although this phase employs mediation technique, it is neither a legal proceeding nor a forum to assign blame. It simply focuses on obtaining a better understanding of each party’s view of the issues and reviews the past only to enable movement toward the future.
PHASE II
Following the interviews, in Phase II, the mediator analyzes the collected data, identifies the breaks in communication and managerial processes that promoted the conflicts, and provides a written report and formal presentation recommending staffing, procedures, managerial processes and training that organizations can utilize to reduce and limit the anticipated legal exposure and the hard and soft costs of the conflict.
PHASE III
Phase III includes consultations with management and implementation of the approved Phase II recommendations in order to assist organizations in their desire to proactively manage current conflicts and provide for early intervention in, or prevention of, future conflict.