Find Your Sacred During Times of Tension and Conflict Communication

Find Your Sacred During Times of Tension and Conflict Communication

Conflict Communication

Find your sacred during times of conflict and tension: As I sit across the bargaining table from a Union counterpart, he slams his fists against the table, calls me names not worth repeating and has choice words for the employer I represent. It is worth mentioning; the employer I represent is reasonable and fair. Fortunately, this is not an everyday experience. Most of us negotiators can have these difficult conversations while respecting the party opposite and the process. Whether out of shock or good judgment, our team does not react.  I suggest a caucus “to gather our thoughts,” but it is to create space to calm things down.

During our caucus, the first order of business would be convincing our team that the outburst required no direct response.

Sure, there are times to respond with passion and vigour, but that wasn’t one of them.

I would remind our team that perceived process wins and “I sure showed them moments” in front of committees did not amount to a win on the actual negotiation scorecard.

While strolling down the hallway to our caucus room, I inhaled deeply, muttered, “It’s not about me,” under my breath and reflected on what holds us together in these moments.

What keeps us from responding in kind, escalating the situation and causing conlfict communication breakdown and impasse?

For me, and it works regardless of whether others reciprocate the sentiment, I hold dear and sacred the negotiating table, the negotiation process, the parties involved, and the agreement reached. Holding on to this meaningfulness keeps me grounded and helps me not lose perspective during tension and hostility, independent of what happens during the exchange.

This is hardly a unique approach, but how did this approach become ingrained within me?

I was often troubled and confused about my place and direction in life throughout my teens and early twenties, exacerbated by several family calamities. Fortunately, at the time, I found a healthy distraction in the sport of wrestling. It meant a lot to me to become competent at the sport. I prepared obsessively and competed often.

What could Wrestling, or other Competitive Sports have to do with Conflict Communication?

Wrestling was somewhat nerve-racking for many in the sport, even the well-adjusted. A match is a one-on-one competition. Defeats were punctuated and often taken as personal failures unless they were in matches close on points. Due to my maladjustments, I was driven more by fear of losing than the joy of participation and chance of success, seemingly to a greater extent than most.

I worried too much and made the mistake of placing too much of my identity and self-worth on the line.

At tournaments, our team members would wear our wrestling singlets underneath our sweats and t-shirts during warm-ups. We would drop our shoulder straps and let them hang down outside our sweats during warm-ups before the match. In so doing, we showcased our slightly rebellious nature and style (if there was such a thing among us) while it identified us as wrestlers when walking the gym floor.

There was a rule; however, you never stepped onto the mat with your straps down when arriving for your match. Doing so would be a sign of disrespect for the sport, to your opponent, and the match itself.

I enjoyed the rule. It was one of those things we came to know and made us feel like we were in on a secret code of sorts. My self-centred fear would block access to the more fulsome meaning behind the rule at the time. After accumulating much greyer hair and distance from the sport, a deeper appreciation would surface years later.

A wrestling match is an intense situation that reveals our humanness, whether virtues or vices, courage or fear, or a mix of all above. It is a test or moment of truth, if you will, on whether you trained hard enough, had the physical and mental fitness, ate properly, and had the talent to succeed. It was a test of character, courage and integrity.

In the middle of all this intensity and human frailties and strengths, the mat was sacred.

We worked out on the mat, warmed up, stretched, cooled down, meditated, and even disinfected and cleaned the mat. We cared for and honoured the mat. The mat was the truthteller during the competition amidst a collision of human fortitude, weakness, and tension. Having the reverence to adopt rules that made the mat sacred was enough to remove us, ever so slightly from our self-centred fear,  to engage in the match on an honourable footing grounded in virtue with our fears muted.

For those transformations to happen, the rule/ritual needs to be in place, and we need to be present to the moment enough to honour the ritual and find meaning in it.

During our caucus, I see energy return to the faces of our team. They understand that the over-the-top outburst we witnessed did nothing to change our bargaining position. They understand that a non-reaction can, in fact, be more potent than a reaction in conflict communication. We walk back down the hall to the negotiation room. I take a few deep breaths during our stroll.

We enter the room and move to our seats. My eyes scan the surface of the table, with binders and papers strewn about, people leaning in, leaning back, arms open, arms crossed, elbows on the table elbows off the table, some eye contact, some eyes down, some eyes averting direct view, some nods and some shrugs. I exhale as my hands touch the surface before me and feel its texture. I gauge the table’s strength while seated. I notice the soles of my feet against the floor and feel my connection to the ground supporting me. I press my shoes to the floor, twist ever so slightly and feel the resulting stored energy. This is a precious moment. The negotiation table, process, and the agreement that we will eventually achieve; bind us to the truth and integrity that connect us. I remind myself that it is not about me. It is not about one person’s behaviour. With self-centred fear set aside, we get down to honouring the business at hand again. In this state, we are prepared to engage in conflict communication skillfully. 

Whatever we do, find the meaning, find the sacred, and learn to trust it.

That is one example of how some of us hold it together during conflict communication, tension, escalation, hostility and challenge.

Please visit our homepage for more information about our labour relations and human resources firm with offices in Edmonton, Alberta and Prince George and Victoria, British Columbia.

Respectfully submitted,

Sam Kemble

Chief Operating Officer

With People Inc.

 

Job Readiness: Born Mainly from Positions of Privilege, What is it Now?

Suppose we Googled the phrase “job-ready” and looked back to the content date stamped at just about 2000. The phrase was not as pervasive as it is today and is often referred to as:

  • machines and equipment that were job-ready[1] for the projects that needed them,
  • welfare recipients[2] and convicts who were job-ready[3], and
  • projects themselves being job-ready (i.e. ready for people; what we now refer to as “shovel-ready”).

Hence, the phrase was about:

  • the absence of, or remediation of, socioeconomic barriers to achieving a job,
  • about the scheduling function of projects concerning material and equipment, or
  • scopes of work developed enough to receive the workforce required to execute the work.

Between 2001-2005, industry stakeholders began to use the phrase more widely; it was about candidates for employment having all the required training tickets for safety-sensitive positions, usually in the industrial construction and maintenance sector.

In Alberta, this was born mainly from a place of privilege. During such time, building trade union members performed most heavy industrial construction and maintenance work in the Wood Buffalo and the Industrial Heartland regions. Each hiring hall had a multi-employer-funded training trust fund, indirectly paid for by major industrial clients through cost-plus funding arrangements with their contracted service providers. Despite this, the practice was that those members dispatched would spend the first 3-4 days on-site, on paid time, in safety training. Often the project and employer would be retraining members who would not disclose that they already had the certification in question.

Who wants to be out in minus thirty turning wrenches when they could be on paid time, sitting in a lovely warm classroom, drinking coffee, learning about fall arrest for the twentieth time?

Safety professionals certainly did not lose sleep over this waste; it meant more business for them. In the heavy industrial construction and maintenance sector, there is no business like the safety business.

Then, the ones paying the bill had enough.

Purchasers of significant industrial capital projects sent their auditors in, who began to ask questions.

If we have to pay to train everyone anyways, why are we also paying millions of dollars each year into training trust funds?

There was no good answer to this uncomfortable question, and it became an awkward conversation at the bargaining table.

The repetitive training and upload of the training responsibility to the industry’s best clients became, to some extent, a prevailing practice.

Employers needed to address the issue with the bargaining representatives of the members who took such liberties for granted for a long time. The Ironworkers, Carpenters and Labourers stepped up. They recognized they were in the business of supplying qualified, skilled tradespeople and construction professionals to the industry and ended the practice.

They readily agreed to dispatch their members “job-ready,” meaning they were pre-trained, supported by their training trust fund, and ready to go to work.

It took multiple rounds of bargaining for other unions to remove this waste; they would argue that their members were entitled to their entitlements. They instead invested in bricks and mortar of large and lavish training centres with the owner-funded unspent training dues.

If you treat your clients this poorly, any business person knows they will not be clients for long. This situation was no different.

Building trade unions have since lost market share; they no longer perform most of the work available in the Wood Buffalo and Industrial Heartland regions.

Now most workers participating in the industry are no longer dispatched through hiring halls and are no longer supported by funded training trust funds.

When this shift happened, site owners and employers maintained the practice of insisting workers be job-ready.

As a result, the industry downloaded the responsibility for training certifications onto the backs of working construction and maintenance tradespeople.

Now we have no problem with established journeypeople maintaining their safety certifications as part of what it means to be committed to their profession. We feel less comfortable about this within the context of newcomers and apprentices.

We also recognize that this practice, which came from a place of privilege, can have a disproportionate impact on members of groups of individuals who have not traditionally participated in the industry, such as women and BIPOC candidates.

Just one example, members of Indigenous communities living in remote communities do not have equal access to training resources as other candidates.

Workforce Delivery Inc constantly self-scrutinizes our processes, actively seeking to identify structural, systemic and institutional barriers and then apply measures and, at times, a positive bias to eradicate those barriers.

This is what it is like, to recruit right?

If you want to understand more about Workforce Delivery Inc’s recruitment services, contact us at [email protected] or visit us on our recruitment services page.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Sam Kemble

Chief Operating Officer, With People Inc.

[1] RIOT-The Scheduling Problem (berkeley.edu)

[2] How Are Families That Left Welfare Doing? (urban.org); Welfare-to-Work Block Grants: Are They Working? (brookings.edu)

[3] Recruiting and employing offenders (employabilityinscotland.com)

 

2020 Initiative and Industrial Relations List for With People Inc.

Inventory of service activities delivered to clients in 2020, a report by Sam Kemble

A Word from the Executive Operations Officer 

We diversified our client base and service offerings during the year, added capacity, strengthened our balance sheet, and improved our processes. We supported organizations to meet extraordinary and complex challenges through various service offerings.

We are inspired by our client’s character, understanding and compassion towards their employees, union partners, and stakeholders, all during a year that could strain any relationship. We are grateful to continue serving industries and enterprises in Canada.

We wish all well as we approach the New Year.

Respectfully submitted,

Sam Kemble

Executive Operating Officer

Industrial Relations – Negotiations

This year in industrial relations, we bargained collectively with various Building Trade unions in Saskatchewan, CUPE in Edmonton, Unifor in Windsor, and UFCW in Edmonton. Also, we engaged in First Nation Mutual Benefits Agreement Negotiations West of Edmonton.

Industrial Relations

We continue to deepen our service and experience in general industrial relations through grievance administration, progressive discipline support, collective agreement interpretation, group lay-off and bumping-process support, coal-to-gas transition supports, recall list administration, temporary layoff supports, arbitration case management, contracting out, severance liability included in a temporary layoff context, right to refuse unsafe work in a COVID-19 context, pension plan and health benefits and insurance administration, and common employer and successor employer analysis.

Policy Development

We engaged in robust alcohol and drug policy development and costing models, participated in public policy creation and review through the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and developed several policies and practice documents in employment administration.

Training

Ongoing training and workshops were developed and delivered, covering performance management, labour and employee relations, industrial relations, anti-harassment, bullying and violence. Work continues to migrate these modules to an online delivery format for broad and safe accessibility.

 

Recruitment

Significant time has been invested in enhancing our craft recruitment process, including modules for equity hiring and onboarding. We supported clients to develop a 48-hour rule hiring process to coincide with hiring hall scenarios. Cost models have been developed and simulated for craft sourcing, recruitment and onboarding for numerous multi-year projects. Our firm provided direct recruitment support for a plant south of Edmonton, a shutdown near Regina, road construction in Calgary, a pipeline in BC, a plant west of Edmonton, an institutional project in Terrace, recruitment for project administration in Northwest BC, a manufacturing facility south of Edmonton, several residential projects in the Greater Vancouver area, an infrastructure project in Lloydminster, and a roadbuilding project in the Greater Vancouver area.

We have adopted a positive bias into our recruitment process that prefers Indigenous, BIPOC and women candidates.

COVID-19

2020 brought the need to support clients with Covid-19 response measures, including service for essential service employees, implementing masking, hygiene, and physical distancing policies while restructuring work arrangements through staggering shifts and rotating site presence protocols. Various sick and other leave provisions required interpretation within a pandemic context. We also ensured rights and obligations to refuse unsafe work were adequately adhered to within a COVID-19 context. The pandemic also brought unique factors requiring a considered review of human rights and employment statute-protected accommodations, including leave and work accommodations. Many employers also found it necessary to navigate both the in and the out-of-work-from-home transitions.

We are grateful for the opportunity to be of service during such challenging and dynamic times. 

Industrial Relations – Operations / Execution

We engaged in front-end engineering and design (FEED) support for significant capital projects’ workforce delivery and the management component. We increased our forecasting and costing analysis capacity and conducted field execution productivity studies, developed project costing studies, and conducted labour posture comparison studies for construction and maintenance. We developed and supported wall-to-wall craft recruitment models. 

Justice and Social

We provided Jordan’s principal policy, advice, and advocacy within our social justice portfolio. We developed Treaty-based education agreements and policies.

Together with expert volunteers, we are about to release an employer mental health and wellness practice document.

We commenced service to the Board of the Colbourne Institute for Inclusive Leadership.

As a firm, we are taking an aggressive approach to positive bias recruiting to ameliorate disadvantaged and historically disadvantaged groups’ inequities.

 

With People Inc. Internal Capacity

In 2020, the firm increased recruitment, project controls, human resources and data science capacity.

We made investments in achieving a CPHR Certification, investigative report writing training, first aid training, and Principles of Health and Safety Management.

We afforded access to professional coaching to staff to increase career development and the strength of our team.

We created an operational contingency reserve for our operations to de-risk the potential for Covid-19 to impact our staffing levels. We also adopted an accounting policy to carry a fully funded severance liability on our balance sheet.

Throughout 2020 we continue to develop apps for release in 2021, including a force ranking app – 90% complete, a witness credibility app – 70% complete, a quantum of discipline review app – 70% complete. Also, we rebuilt our workforce applicant tracking and onboarding system – 70% complete.

In the ongoing interest of advancing awareness and education in human resources and employee and industrial relations, we maintained our educational Blog, Podcast, and Video Channel (hosted on YouTube).

Visit our homepage for more information about our human resources and industrial relations firm with offices in Edmonton, Alberta, Prince George and Victoria, British Columbia.

Short Term Service Offerings

Short Term Service Offerings

Current environment  Heavy layoffs commenced in 2015 and more are expected in 2017. Wage freezes and wage rollbacks remain a water cooler topic. Capital spending reviews and cuts are in the headlines.  There are many signals that 2017 will continue to be about managing costs and running current operations as lean as possible.   But there is still major project work and maintenance for existing operations underway, and bids to submit to secure future work.  In 2017 companies are properly wary about adding staff or making long-term spending. Essential services and activities will go on but with a sharp eye on costs. There is less organizational slack in most organization charts which may increase the need for temporary or ad hoc assistance for either technical expertise or to have access to increased variable capacity.   

Services you may need:  You may need the plan to source labour and scale up rapidly for maintenance purposes or due to changes in schedule.  And you will need to ensure costs to get workers to the site are tightly controlled. Flying tradespeople across the country every shift may be justifiable in a tight labour market but makes little sense when local or regional options exist.

Labour relations or employee investigations may arise that require staff dedication of time or expertise that no longer exists within your organization.  These are examples of areas of short-term services where Workforce Delivery can help. 

Our knowledge and experience can allow us to build a labour supply strategy that takes the current market into account. We can provide plans and execute them as needed.  

Another area of concern in active projects and worksites is managing spikes in labour relations activity such as misconduct, substance abuse or increase in complaints.  Tension and animosity among workers can build due to the job market outlook or knowing that layoffs may be coming soon.  You need cost-effective options to deal with increased labour relations activity.  Or you may be facing what you consider to be regular workload levels resulting from managing your labour force, but the team you manage has been drastically reduced.  

Your internal capacity and expertise are not what it was two years ago, but the demands remain.  Workforce Delivery can pick up challenging labour relations issues for you such as collective bargaining, grievance handling and complex investigations.  

Where With Peopel Inc. can help – Effective and cost-conscious solutions.  With People Inc. can offer ad hoc labour relations and labour supply services for places where project work is still underway and existing operations in all sectors continue.   

Cost pressures may create an opportunity (or pressure) to review labour supply costs from top to bottom.  

Approaches or sources that were never up for serious consideration in the past may now make sense.  

With People Inc. can be the source for unbiased analysis of the value provided by various labour-sourcing strategies together with transition plans.

The final call remains yours, but demands have never been greater for your decision to be based on critical screening of all the options on the table since 2015.  Our services for labour relations or labour supply can be provided on an ad hoc basis at an hourly rate.  Some common service types we offer:  

  • Single grievance or investigation file completion. 
  • Interim backfill of an unexpected vacancy of a labour relations manager or site role. 
  • Develop a labour supply strategy, with the option to execute that strategy, reporting back progress. 
  • Provide collective bargaining services for a full round of bargaining with one or more trades or unions. 
  • Fulfill labour supply shortfall needs including sourcing, screening, onboarding and booking of travel and accommodations.  

With People Inc. supplies its own phones, common business software and computers and workspace.  So none of the items represent an added cost to our clients.  For full rates and terms please contact us.  Our principal labour relations Practitioner, Sam Kemble have a combined 18+ years of experience in all aspects of labour relations.  

 

CLAC / Alternative to Traditional Building Trade Union Work Plans

CLAC / Alternative to Traditional Building Trade Union Work Plans

Bidding against a BTU industrial contractor in Western Canada? We can help. We’ve supported FEED, construction, maintenance & shutdown work since 2000. We know precisely how to position the labour component to come out on top.

Our firm is specifically looking to support non-Building Trade Union work scopes in Alberta and British Columbia in the:

  • construction,
  • maintenance,
  • shutdown, or
  • pipeline work.

We develop the plan and source the right industrial talent for your work sites.