Miles’ New Workplace Division: Q&A with Parag Shah, CEO of Miles

Thu, Nov 30th, 2023 | by Miles Mediation and Arbitration | Thoughts from the Top | Social Share

This month, we spoke with Parag Shah, Miles’ CEO, about Miles’ new Workplace Division, why it was launched, and the benefits it offers to employers of all sizes.

Q: First, what is the Workplace Division?

A: Miles’ Workplace Division offers a new approach to common workplace conflicts. The Workplace Division lets you offer employees confidential resolutions sessions. Any employee can schedule a resolution session to sit down with the person he or she is having an issue with — and a highly skilled mediator. The highly trained mediator helps the employees address their conflict and figure out a solution that works for everyone. It’s confidential, convenient, and nearly stress-free — and keeps the conflict from disrupting staff productivity or morale.

Q: How did the idea for the Workplace Division come about?

A: The way the typical person handles conflict in the workplace is not productive. Businesses that have good culture, high productivity and are thriving businesses are companies where teams are able to work together, but working together is not easy. There is always conflict and intuitively we are not good at dealing with it in a constructive way. Instead, we avoid it or figure out a way to work around it, neither of which help your business.

Recent research shows that the average employee spends three to five hours dealing with work-related conflicts; these conflicts affect employee morale and productivity as well as increasing the chance of discrimination claims, increasing employee turnover, and being detrimental to both productivity and profits.

We want to help businesses grow and help provide support to help resolve conflicts. We want to preserve, strengthen, and grow the relationship between a team that has deteriorated. The goal isn’t to create a frictionless environment but one where people can navigate friction and come out better on the other side.

Q: What are some of the common causes of workplace conflict?

A: The causes of conflict in the workplace are agnostic to size, industry, or location. Number one is poor communication; others include lack of role clarity; personality clashes; and changes in policy or organizational structure. Good businesses run on people and people will always have issues with communicating, with workloads, with personalities, with changes that happen in an organization. Many of us don’t know that we don’t know how to deal with conflict until it comes along.

Q: What makes this division unique?

A: While other companies may offer something similar, our Workplace Division is not an out-of-the-box solution; we tailor our process to your needs. We figure out what your needs are and have experts to fulfill them, whether it’s a small or large company, or an organization or nonprofit like a university. Our experts are attorneys who are well-versed in these kinds of conflicts.

In addition to helping people resolve conflicts, we offer conflict coaching, which teaches people the skills to help better manage conflicts that arise.

Q: Why can’t employees simply go to HR for these kinds of conflicts?

A: While plenty of conflicts wind up at an HR or legal department, there are certain conflicts that people within the workplace want a forum and a place to express their conflict both constructively and confidentially, but companies don’t have a mechanism where people can feel comfortable to speak freely and not worry that it will come back to hurt them.

Our Workplace Division provides that forum and mechanism, and we’re very excited about working with more clients in 2024.

ABOUT MILES MEDIATION & ARBITRATION

Miles Mediation & Arbitration is shaping the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) industry with our comprehensive professional services model that combines the expertise of our highly skilled, diverse panel of neutrals with an unparalleled level of client support to guide and empower parties to fair, timely, and cost-effective resolution regardless of case size, specialization, or complexity. For more information, please call 888-305-3553 or email support@milesadr.com.