Facilitated Conversations

Employee & Management Relations (E&MR) in the Office of Human Resources (OHR) provides this Facilitated Conversations Program to encourage supervisors and employees to work together to resolve their differences. The University values open and respectful communication among supervisors and employees, and through this program the University provides a venue for parties to talk freely and openly about their needs, interests, opinions, and point of view while addressing mutual concerns.

A facilitated conversation is a structured conversation with two or more university employees, managers, or both, designed to help parties find acceptable solutions regarding a communication or work issue. E&MR assigns trained University employees for all facilitated conversations.

Procedures

The Facilitated Conversations Program is available to all university employees for addressing workplace issues.

• If an employee requests a facilitated conversation, then all parties involved must agree to participate in order for the facilitated conversation to occur.
• If a supervisor requests a facilitated conversation for one or more employees (with or without the presence of management), the employees are required to participate.

The requesting party must submit a completed Facilitated Conversation Request Form to E&MR indicating the nature of the issue and the parties involved. E&MR will contact the parties. If the request is accepted (if applicable), then E&MR will assign facilitator(s) and schedule a time and location for the meeting, generally within two weeks of the request. Some facilitation may require more than one meeting.

Upon request, E&MR will provide a summary of the facilitation to the parties involved.