Once participants enter the ADR process managers start to look for things to write up against the employee, said one ADR professional. Image: zolt4nkov4cs/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffIn a sample by the EEOC of federal employees who had participated in informal processes aimed at resolving EEO-related complaints, the large majority said it was not fair and that they were dissatisfied with the results.
While the survey involved only a small number of employees, 72, the results showed a consistently negative view by employees of alternative dispute resolution, which the EEOC touts as avoiding going through the often lengthy, costly and acrimonious formal process for such complaints.
For example, only 22 of the employees agreed and only four strongly agreed that the process was fair, compared with 28 who strongly disagreed and 18 who disagreed. Similarly, 34 were very dissatisfied and 17 dissatisfied, compared with 14 who were satisfied and seven who were very satisfied. And only 9 said the process met their expectations, with 50 saying it didn’t and the other 13 saying they had no expectations.
That’s in sharp contrast to responses from the 23 agency management officials who responded; all but two said the process was fair and all but two said that they were satisfied with it. Fourteen said it met their expectations and only three said it didn’t, with the other six saying they had no expectations.
Further, 42 of the employees said they were thinking of leaving their organization within the next year, citing factors including “fear of reprisal and exclusion from future promotion considerations” and that “the harassment continued and reprisal for engaging in the EEO process.”
“Notably, 17 complainants reported that retaliation after participating in the ADR process had led them to consider leaving,” the report said.
The EEOC said that a focus group it gathered of 11 ADR professionals such as counselors and mediators “felt that management, more often than not, approached ADR with an adversarial mindset that eroded trust in the process.”
“The group stated that some ADR participants felt like it was a “shakedown by management” or a “waste of time,” where agency attorneys were present to assess whether there was a legitimate case rather than to participate in good faith towards a resolution both parties could accept. One ADR professional said, “Once participants enter the process, reprisal becomes an issue because managers start to look for anything and everything to write up against the employee,” it said.
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