Intra-company Mediation

The managing director has announced plans to change the company’s working time arrangements in order to respond more flexibly to customer requirements. The works council opposes the proposed arrangements because it fears they will place a greater burden on staff and have a negative impact on their work-life balance.

At a major multinational corporation, sales figures in Europe have been falling for the past two years. As a result of this and various other reasons, the role of European Head of Sales has been filled five times over the past three years. The European Head of Sales, who took up the post two months ago, has many new ideas for getting sales back on track. In America, the incumbent Head of International Customer Relations is very annoyed about the sales figures in Europe and wants to take the reins. A conflict arises between the European Head of Sales and the Head of International Customer Relations over new measures.

The management team wishes to digitise the company. A young manager is driving the change forward with great dedication. An experienced employee, who is about to retire, sees this primarily as an additional burden with no personal benefit. What begins as a matter of fact is increasingly turning into a conflict between individuals.

‘Department X never finishes on time; because of them, we’re constantly running behind schedule,’ is the sentiment expressed at the department heads’ meeting. ‘Department Y is always putting us under unnecessary time pressure and just won’t get the fact that we work carefully and thoroughly here, unlike them,’ comes the retort.

The project had an expected IRR of 15%. One deadline after another is being missed, and the project is in danger of failing forever. Person X and Person Y are busy pointing fingers at each other rather than looking for solutions.