The Office of Personnel Management’s guide to handling
workplace disputes, “Alternative Dispute Resolution
Techniques and Agency Practices,” can be an important
resource for supervisors faced with resolving conflicts in
the workplace.
The guide provides information on agency ADR programs,
beginning with a summary of the most common ADR techniques
used in the federal government. Binding Arbitration, it says,
is the presentation of a dispute to a neutral individual or
panel in order to arrive at a decision that both parties,
will be held to with the force of law, but without resulting
in a legal precedent. ADR has been gaining wide use among agencies.
Interest-based problem solving, as the guide explains, is a
technique to arrive at a solution in such a way that
strengthens the relationship between the parties involved and
generally means looking at an impasse in abstract terms so as
to make it easier for those involved to take a distanced
approach and reach an objective solution.
Settlement conferences, are settled by a judge or referee (or
some such mediator) in front of representatives of each party
in order to arrive at a mutually agreed upon settlement, the
guide says. Summaries of other common ADR techniques may be